


No Rowling in this Universe

by Eruanna3012, Lily_Dragon



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2018-12-22 23:11:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11977059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eruanna3012/pseuds/Eruanna3012, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Dragon/pseuds/Lily_Dragon
Summary: What do you get when you throw the Harry Potter books into the telepathic circuits of an old TARDIS? Definitely way more than you bargained for!It's a rather slow buildup at first, but once it gets going, it's going to be one crazy, wibbly-wobly, timey-wimey ride :D





	1. New Arrivals (POV Clara)

Clara I

 

Clara fiddled nervously with the TARDIS key around her neck while yet another flurry of black-robed students passed right beside her in the hallway. She had been walking around Hogwarts for about half an hour already, but it was the first time that she found herself testing whether the magical environment of the castle would interfere with TARDIS technology. The group of Hufflepuffs walked right past her without sparing her a glance, but she still wasn’t sure that was due to the effectiveness of the perception filter: Judging by the number of students who had schedules in their hands or were generally looking a bit flustered or even lost, it seemed to be the first week of school – possibly even the first day.

Releasing a breath she hadn’t even realised she was holding, Clara decided to follow the excited students – first-years, judging by their wide-eyed looks – into their next class. It was really hard to tell which year it was in such a timeless place – it was not like she could guess the date by the size and shape of current technology there. Usually she would just trust the Doctor’s (almost) infallible time sense, but this time he hadn’t shared even this small piece of information with her.

Even though she was (theoretically) invisible, or at the very least unnoticeable, Clara still suppressed the urge to roll her eyes at the thought of the Doctor’s behaviour in this particular place. The usually endlessly curious and nosy Doctor had been quite uncharacteristically reticent about this place, outright refusing to step out of the TARDIS the very instant her doors opened at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. She thought he would have snapped out of his grumpiness after landing, but something seemed to be amiss this time. It had all started when she had spotted all seven books of the well-known magical saga strewn about the TARDIS console and had started to tease the Doctor about it. Instead of the long-winded speech about the improbability of magic (and maybe some digression about this alien species or another who used wand-shaped, solar-powered tools that looked a lot like the spell casting described in the books), all she got was a dismissive wave of a hand and a grumble of “The old girl sure is getting nostalgic”.

She had all but forgotten about this seemingly casual comment until one day – one of those days in which the Doctor didn’t materialize in his blue box, the weather was nasty and she was PMSing so hard that correcting her student’s essays was pure torture – she turned on the telly at a random channel to find the unforgettable face of one of the Doctor’s prior incarnations playing a minor character in _The Goblet of Fire_. The next time the Doctor appeared, the TARDIS wasn’t even fully materialized before Clara started with some merciless teasing about "How much of a fanboy were you, Doctor! Landing yourself a role in the movie, of all things!" As for Clara herself, she had more than just hoped that an owl would tap on her window with a letter in its beak on her 11th birthday, had laughed and cried along with the characters as she grew up right alongside them. She couldn’t believe that the Doctor – especially in his current, no-nonsense science-minded form – would have the patience to read about a magic school with moving stairs.

So earlier today, when they'd been at a loss of ideas for a destination, she had half-jokingly suggested that they could try to go to Hogwarts. The Doctor’s response had surprised her in many ways: not only had he taken her suggestion seriously, but his response had been most mystifying.“It’s not that simple, Clara. If such a world exists, it would be in a version of Earth, in a version of England – meaning it’s not another planet, but a parallel universe altogether. And as of now, travelling to them is simply impossible.” What Clara hadn’t expect was the mixture of hurt and longing in his eyes at the mention of this impossibility – emotions that seemed to go way beyond the frustration with the impossible that the Doctor usually had. It had been a heartbreaking and familiar haunted look, in fact.

“Let me guess: the Time Lords used to make it possible before they were all gone…” even after knowing that Gallifrey probably wasn’t destroyed, Clara understood that it would be hard to shake off thousands of years of loneliness - but luckily, she was there to remind him of the changes.

“But you don’t know if they’re really all gone, right?” Not about to give up on her childhood dream, she discreetly snatched the copy of The Deathly Hallows that was still lying around the control room and hid it behind her back. “We could actually test that hypothesis by trying to travel to that specific parallel world. Like an experiment! Don’t you wanna try it?”

“It just won’t work, Clara.” his shoulders had slumped and he had looked down in defeat – and thus, hadn’t reacted in time to stop Clara from opening the hatch of the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits and sticking the book deep inside it.

“Well then, if nothing is going to happen, I might as well try this…”

One full blackout crisis, ten terrifying seconds of free fall, a crash-landing and what could only be described as a long suffering moan from the time rotor later, Clara’s hypothesis was proven right. After getting over the necessary fussing and cursing about the state of the TARDIS, the Doctor actually seemed to get a bit excited at the prospects of exploring his once beloved fictional universe – until he'd opened the door and shut it two seconds later, hands trembling and his face as white as a sheet.

“Is there something wrong, Doctor? Are we in a weird, dangerous place?”

“No, we are here, alright” seemingly recovering from whatever had moved him, the Doctor had made a valiant attempt at assuming his casual demeanour, walking about with his hands clasped behind his back. “Right at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, overlooking the castle. Quite beautiful, in fact. You could check it out. But I’m staying.”

“Staying? Are you out of your mind? Why would you pass up a chance to explore an alternate universe? If even you thought it was impossible, why not be excited about it?” Clara had wondered, all but pulling on his arm to get him closer to the door, when a thought had made her pause. “Wait, are you afraid you’ll meet an alternate version of yourself, maybe?”

“There are no alternate versions of Time Lords” he had retorted, a bit too harshly for her liking. “Now move along, go explore your little girl’s fantasy, I’m not really interested in these narrow-minded, cultist pudding-brains.”

Clara had wanted to ask him about his strange behaviour, but before she had had time to open her mouth he'd all but shoved the perception filter up her nose “so you don’t have to dress like a schoolgirl, you hardly look the part” and had shut himself in the library. She was used to his moody fits, of course, but what made her really worried was the fact that he hadn’t even looked at the two different places in the control room that were oozing a weird pink substance. He was, for the first time in all their acquaintance, neglecting the repairs of his own ship. Were his feelings about the wizarding world so strong that he felt such a great need to hide?

Lost in thought, Clara realised too late that she had lost the group of first-years she had been following on a moving stairway, and found herself alone again. She was quite happy to meander through the halls, wondering if she would eventually find a noteworthy place, such as the Great Hall, The Astronomy Tower, or even the dungeons. Maybe finding the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher would be the best way to determine the year she was in…

A clear, oddly familiar voice reached her ears from further up the corridor she had just turned into and Clara was drawn to a partially open door of a classroom. She leaned in closer to listen to the professor’s voice, who was talking quite animatedly to his students.

“Let me start this course with a little story, ladies and gentlemen. Once upon a time there was a certain people who were slightly different than their fellow people, with some special abilities that made them relate to their world in a different way. For centuries they were considered to be spiritual leaders, healers or just crafty workers, until some twisted interpretation of a religious text led to their persecution by the general population. Imagine then, that this people decided to go into hiding, just like many oppressed people had before, to carry on their culture and practices in private, without being found out by the general population. However, these people enjoyed hiding so much that, a long time after the silly persecutory superstitions had faded, they still kept on hiding and alienating themselves from everybody else.”

Afraid to open the door wider and attract attention with any additional noise, Clara could only observe the students' reaction to the speech: As usual, there were the bored ones in the back, passing little notes while they thought the teacher wouldn't notice, but the class in general seemed to be intrigued, if perhaps a bit confused.

“One might imagine that, being from an oppressed and persecuted group, this isolated society would cultivate the ideals of tolerance and understanding of those who are different, but no, not them. Instead, over the years they proceeded to do exactly the opposite: they became obsessed with the genetics of their condition, developing supremacist theories of blood and family lineages; they excluded all the other species in hiding from their new society, and isolated themselves in such a way that they didn’t acknowledge any other advance produced by the general population, making them virtually stuck in the past. More than that: They relied on their abilities so much, that they eventually lost the very curiosity that had made them so ingenious in the past. With the centuries passing, their small-mindedness and prejudices grew to such a degree that they almost completely ignored the world around them, focusing only on their own problems and institutions, thinking that they were a closed off society. But oh, they were not. In every generation there was some psycho who decided to kill off those who were different from them, be it inside or outside their own community, and all these selfish people did was invent lies and manipulate minds in order to maintain their secret. And even worse, when the whole world was in danger and in dire need of their abilities, all they did was hide themselves away even more, passively watching while thousands were murdered.”

As the professor’s words became harsher, the class grew quieter, with some students shooting nervous looks towards the door, as if seriously considering having to make a run for it.

“You might be wondering by now if you've ended up in the wrong classroom, but I can assure you that this is your first lesson in Muggle Studies. After all, the little story I presented you with is none other than the history of your own people told from another perspective. This is what the wizarding world might look like if you all take your heads off pretty spells and bubbly potions and really look at the world around you. You were all born with special abilities to influence and manipulate your environment – magic, in essence –but ever since you split with the Muggles, no one has bothered trying to explain what those abilities are, and why they only work within the relatively limited frame of a certain number of people. You invent almost nothing new outside of the practical applications of magic, and every attempt to use Muggle technology is regarded with suspicion and punished by prosecution from the government. You are whisked off to a castle as children, and for months and months you live and breathe this isolationist way of thinking, so no adult will later question why you have to ignore the rest of the world just because weird stuff happens when you shout some Latin words while waving a stick around. And then, just because your society is still too small to ignore the rest of the world completely, a tiny little subject, a silly elective is offered in school. But if you are taking this course so you might learn about the Muggles – how adorably quaint, they are, and how they solve those obvious, easy problems with so much toil and metal and grease, bless them… Well, in that case, you might as well get out now, no hard feelings, because this isn’t that kind of class.”

There was a dramatic pause, but no student even dared to blink, let alone move.

“But if you want to learn with, and not just about Muggles," the Professor continued in a more cheerful voice, "if you want to expand the horizon of your mind and see how magic itself can be transformed when your curiosity is reawakened, then this is the right class for you, and I promise you that it will be a fantastic experience. Any questions?”

The answering silence would have allowed anyone to hear a pin drop.

“Soooo… It seems that I have made one of my quite impressive speeches again, and that you are a bit frozen to the spot right now, so I reckon it’s not really a good time for questions, is it? Oh well… Maybe some unfairly long and possibly dull assignment can give you the sense of normality that you have been lacking so far in this class”.

A collective groan ensued.

“Now that’s more like the school experience I’m used to." The Professor said happily. "I want you to write an essay on everything you know about the Cybermen. Don’t hesitate to write to your parents or friends about it, if you find that you know too little… Anything counts: facts, impressions, where you were when it happened, if there was anyone affected by it in your family or circle of friends… Don’t be afraid to get personal.”

With the sound of bags being opened, parchment spread out and quills scratching away while the students were writing it all down, Clara felt it was safe to try and open the door just a bit further to see who this peculiar professor was. She succeeded in doing it quite silently, with no loud, noticeable creeks – but the gasp that she let out when she saw the Professor was enough to attract some minor attention. The students who noticed – the more fidgety teens who liked to sit closer to the door – probably dismissed it as a gust of wind, but not him: two surprised hazel eyes were staring directly at her, through the perception filter, eyebrows rising higher and higher until they were hidden beneath his messy brown hair.

He was perfectly immobile for a few seconds, taking in her muggle clothes, the perception filter around her neck and the look on her face that was probably just as surprised, but he regained his composure quickly enough, and continued instructing his class about the materials they would use for the semester. His eyes, however, never left her for long, and the message seemed clear: _We’ll talk as soon as this is done._


	2. New Arrivals (POV Donna)

Donna I

 

Donna was bored. Really, really, super-duper, mind-numbingly bored.

With an irritated glance at the lake, she threw yet another pebble in it. She had already thrown an apple, leaves, and even a broken microchip that Dad had given her to play with into the lake, trying to lure out the giant Squid, but to no avail. _Maybe he is too deep in the lake to feel the vibrations in the water_ , she wondered. She had already tried shouting for the squid, but after two calls of “OI, SQUID THING!”, she remembered Mum said it was rude to call people by something other than names or titles, and that she was always telling Dad that he couldn’t expect people to be nice to him after he had been rude to them. _Maybe he is hiding from his Mum, as well_ , she thought, a bit guiltily, as she stood up and took her feet out of the water.

She hadn’t meant to make the little TARDIS upset, really. She only wanted to help her grow, just like Dad and Mum spent so much time doing. In fact, if Mum had let her install that new panel on the engine room with her, instead of sticking her into the playroom to watch the baby, none of this would have happened. The baby was so boring. He didn’t know how to read, hardly knew how to talk and cried whenever he saw something he didn’t want. _Daddy says we have to be kind and reasonable._ She grimaced when she tried to put her socks back on and felt how squishy her still wet feet felt. _And refusing to communicate and crying and snivelling all the time instead isn’t reasonable at all._ Nor was it kind on her sensitive ears.

But sadly, it was effective – Mum would stop even the most important stuff to tend to Jack when he cried, while Donna had to wait until Mum had finished whatever she was working on before she helped Donna with her projects, because “You’re a big, smart girl, Donna, and I’m sure this can wait”. It was unfair.

Today, however, Mum hadn’t showed up as soon as the baby’s face had scrunched up and become red and he had started wailing. Maybe she had been too far away in the engine room, or the TARDIS had put their room further down the corridor. But, after some minutes of annoyance, Donna had seen the situation as an opportunity to teach little Jack some civility.

“Oi, baby, this is not the proper way to get Mum’s attention!” she had stood in front of him and tapped her foot on the colourful padded ground. “You have to use words!” she said slowly, pointing at her mouth.

“Waaaaaaaah!” his eyebrows had scrunched up even further, his little fists balling and straining against the ground as he tried to lift himself to a standing position.

“Not like that, you moron, you have to use actual phrases!” she was growing impatient. “You need to use our own proper language, Dad is the only one who can speak baby and… oh!” suddenly, an idea had come to her. Dad had told her about the TARDIS translation circuits only yesterday, and how he was slowly uploading all the languages he could speak so she would help them all telepathically when they could finally go off-planet. Had Daddy already uploaded baby to the TARDIS? Maybe all she had to do was upload little Jack’s speech into the computer and the ship would translate it to her, making all the communication so much easier.

It had seemed like a great idea at the time.

At first, Donna thought about carrying her little brother to the console room, but the idea of getting snot and drool all over her shirt was most unappealing. Maybe if she tried to wire the video game console to the wires in the coral wall…

When she finally hooked the wires around her brother’s temples, the TARDIS wailed much louder than the baby and the whole power went down for a few seconds. Less than ten seconds later, Mum was at the door, a flashlight in hand and a furious expression on her face.

“What have I told you about experimenting on your brother, Donna?”

“But Mum, I wasn’t experimenting on him, I was just trying to...”

“There are telepathic wires around his head!” she ran to that traitorous baby, who had even stopped screaming and was reaching out his little arms to be picked up. “Young miss, you’re going to be in so much trouble when I…”

Donna didn’t wait for her mum to finish that sentence. After all, Daddy always told her: _When reasonable negotiations fail, run!_

With her mum still entangled in the wires, Donna had fled the playroom, passing the control room as fast as her legs would carry her, down the already familiar path that led out of the Forbidden Forest, all the way to the edge of the lake. Her initial plans included a daring ride on the back of the Giant Squid to a mystical island in the middle of the lake, where her parents would only find her weeks later… But half an hour had already passed, and Donna was still stuck at phase one of her plan: finding the aforementioned Giant Squid.

If she was honest with herself, she'd had a plan B all along: a part of her was waiting for Mum to run after her (preferably without the baby in tow), so they could finally have a reasonable conversation (without her brother and the TARDIS screaming), where she would calmly explain that she wasn’t misbehaving and that she wasn’t experimenting on baby Jack, so to speak – all she wanted was to have the TARDIS translate for him. Then, Mum would hug her, tell her she was too clever for her own good, trying to hide her smile while pretending to be mad for just a while longer and finally apologize for shouting at her earlier. She would tell Dad about it over dinner and he would laugh, ruffle her hair and spend the rest of the evening teaching her how to program the translation circuits of the TARDIS, and maybe even teaching her new, interesting words that she had to keep secret from mum if they wanted to avoid being told off…

But it had been thirty-seven minutes, and Mum hadn’t come for her. Donna put her boots back on with some difficulty, wrinkling her nose at the ‘squish’ sound it made when the sole made contact with her wet socks, and contemplated her options now that both of her plans had failed. Apart from the gentle waves on the lake and the rustle of the forest behind her, there were no sounds or other signs of life near her, and Donna started to feel so very alone.

 _Maybe Mum isn’t worried about me anymore. I’m already a big girl and she has baby Jack. Maybe I’m just getting in her way while she works on the TARDIS, and Daddy is busy with the older kids in the castle and nobody likes me anymore…_ Her eyes started watering, but she soon straightened her back and rubbed her eyes. _But am I bothered? No, I won’t be bothered._

She started walking back purposefully, ignoring the stray tears that occasionally spilled down her hardened face, her mind set on telling Mum how much she didn’t care that she was all alone in the world, and that she would grow her own TARDIS and find a planet where there were no stupid little brothers to snivel and cry all the time, when something caught her eye. On the edge of the path, hidden beneath two broad trees was some bright-coloured object that contrasted with the faded browns and greens of the forest. Her long speech momentarily forgotten, Donna crept closer, trying to thread quietly (unsuccessfully, with all the squishy sounds her boots were making), but when the object came fully into view, she grinned widely and ran towards it. The blue box looked just like the old pictures that her parents had showed her, and that could only mean one thing: not only had their TARDIS moved, but she had also changed shape!

 _Now I know why Mum didn’t run after me,_ she thought, in a mix of relief and smugness _, she was too busy dealing with the TARDIS's growth spurt that I probably caused with my translation retro-programming…_ She reached for the key that hung around her neck in a long, silvery chain and, standing on her tiptoes, reached up to the lock. Strangely, instead of the snug fit she was used to, the key jammed inside the lock, and it took a fair amount of vigorous pushing (and three seconds of hanging from the lock with both hands, twisting the key) until the door budged and she went inside. _I hope Dad can fix it later_ , she thought, frowning. _I took good care of the key, the TARDIS is just acting weird_.

Once inside, her eyes widened – instead of the little control room she was used to, full of natural coral walls and half installed-panels, the room she was in looked huge and imposing, with all the blinking buttons, revolving panels and books tucked away in shelves lining the walls.

“THIS IS AMAZING!” she exclaimed, running towards the tall Time Rotor. _And all of it because of Jack’s little brain? Maybe he’s not that useless after all._ she mused, trying to reach the buttons of the panels. She briefly lamented the loss of the little stool Dad had made her, but it was nothing a little climbing and wiggling couldn’t solve. So she climbed on top, and once her muddy boots were firmly planted on the console, she hugged the Time Rotor for support while she perused the new controls. Seeing a lot of unknown buttons and levers, she tried her best to stay clear of those (half of her bedtime stories were comprised of tales of little Time Tots who pressed the unknown, weird buttons in their parents’ TARDISES and ended up in horrible places where chocolate ate people instead of the other way around). But she spotted a relatively safe and familiar button, the music player, and was just reaching for it when her boots slipped and she stepped on three ominous-looking red buttons.

The ship emitted what sounded a lot like a long-suffering groan, and Donna held her breath, shaking slightly and shutting her eyes tightly, reaching out mentally to apologize to the ship. For exactly two seconds, nothing happened, and she was just starting to relax when a door burst open behind her, and out walked a complete stranger, his face scrunched up in anger. “Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?!?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello dear readers and welcome to our story! While it is a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover first and foremost, there will also be many references to other parts of related and nonrelated pop-culture, tucked in like Molly Weasley's home-made toffee-filled Easter eggs, and for each one you find you, dear readers, level-up in awesomeness ;)
> 
> It all began as an innocent trans-Atlantic birthday gift: it was Eruanna’s birthday, and Lily didn’t trust the Brazilian mail system to deliver anything in a timely manner (or even at all to be honest), so she offered to flex her very rusted creative muscles and write her a little scene. The prompt was “what if the Doctor taught at Hogwarts?”, and what was supposed to be a little scene turned into a wider idea, and through many hours spent in skype laughing together, a whole gigantic universe was born! 
> 
> Eventually this work will become part of a series with a prequel and a sequel/spinoff (because we simply had too many ideas to stuff it all into one story), but for now we will give it our all to focus on this, the main story, and provide you, our faithful audience, with regular, weekly updates.  
> We tried to stay as true to the canon as we could and only tweaked some details here and there when it was absolutely necessary for what we wanted to do. Also, when it comes to the description of Hogwarts castle and the surrounding grounds, we stuck to the descriptions from the books for the simple reason that their designs changed so much from one movie to the next. With the characters we rode some sort of middle ground, only leaning towards the books where the movies hadn't done the characters justice (for instance in Firenze's case).
> 
> With our original characters we tried to achieve four things: Firstly, we wanted them to be interesting people, who each play their part in creating and telling a good story. Secondly, we wished to expand the wizarding world by integrating into it the mythologies and legends from our own cultures (Slavic and Brazilian) and other mythologies we were fond of (such as Norse, Finnish and Celtic). Thirdly, we wanted them to be versatile, to show that dawning of a new, better age in the wizarding community that the Epilogue and all of J.K. Rowling's new writing on Pottermore are outlining. And lastly, we wanted to show that this new age is still in the cradle and that change is always slow and fraught with struggle and pain, but all the more important to fight for because of it.
> 
> And now, we return to our scheduled program.
> 
> Enjoy,
> 
> Eruanna & LilyDragon


	3. New Arrivals (POV Rose)

Rose I

Her mother had always warned her that being a mum would be the most exhausting job that she would ever have. Back then, when she was so early along in her pregnancy with Donna that her slim figure was still intact and the morning sickness didn’t even bother her that much, Rose had laughed and dismissed her mother’s words. She was Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, who had built one of the most dangerous pieces of human technology that existed in the Multiverse, crossed dimensions, created fixed points in time and done all manner of impossible things. She had gone weeks without sleeping more than two hours, and had still been as alert as ever. How could a sweet little baby be any more tiring than those desperate trips across universes?

It was only in moments such as the present, when she was untangling her son’s head from a myriad of telepathic wires while her eldest daughter bolted to the Forbidden Forest, that she really understood what her own mother had meant. It wasn’t the lack of sleep or the physical demands of motherhood that got to her, not really: the sheer weirdness of her situation was just enough to make her want to stay in bed for a week straight.

One of the things that exhausted her the most at this particular moment was how different her two children were. Rose had told herself that having a second child would be much easier – she already knew about the augmented brain capacity that was coupled with the same emotional needs and responses of regular human children, as well as the telepathy – with the Doctor’s help, she was able to develop the natural bonds with her children and husband, feel the connection she shared with the members of her family and even speak to them across short distances, if needed. But she had thought that Time Tots (she still felt like snickering at the cute and casual expression for an otherwise stuffy and formal people) were all like her eldest: fiercely independent, curious, precocious and even a bigger trouble magnet  than both of her parents combined.

And then little Jack came along. He was curious and precocious alright, in his own special way . After all, his little, grabby fingers were the whole reason Rose couldn’t have him by her side while she was working on the TARDIS controls. But he was just so _needy_ , making puppy-dog eyes (so like his father) at her whenever she as much as thought about leaving his sight, clinging to her with all the surprising force of his little hands, and reaching for her mind constantly. It felt like she had to learn how to be a mother all over again – while still being a mom for Donna. Between keeping her children from accidentally (or even worse, purposefully) causing harm to each other _and_ trying to encourage and prepare a growing TARDIS for interplanetary travel and temporal shifts (which often felt like having a third child) _and_ keeping her husband from smacking his work colleagues and/or students when he felt they were being too thick and prejudiced (which at times felt like having a _fourth_ child in its own right), yes, Rose was exhausted.

“It’s alright, dear, mummy is here” she murmured to the little one and kissed his forehead, still trying to untangle the wires around his head. “Did Donna hurt your head with the wires, Jack?”

She felt a wave of distress in her mind, but it felt more like the usual “ _I miss you, mummy”_ than any mental or physical pain..

“You know you’re going to have to learn how to talk, right, dear? All the people who are not Mum and Dad can’t hear you when you talk only with your mind. Now, how are you feeling? What happened when Donna wired you into the TARDIS?” Once he was properly unwired and settled in his mother’s arms, little Jack finally calmed his anxious mind.

The little one projected his impressions of fright and alarm with flashing lights and noise, but again, no sign of any physical or mental alterations. After running her hands through her son’s fine brown hair, checking his scalp for injuries, or the wires for any entry points, she realised that Donna hadn’t actually made a full connection between her youngest and the TARDIS. For a few seconds she was immensely relieved, as she wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences of an overlapping of her son’s and the TARDIS’ minds, and any unpleasant consequences for either of the parties. But this left another puzzling unanswered question: If Donna hadn’t caused this strange behaviour of the TARDIS, what had?

And there was still the matter of her daughter’s current whereabouts. Reaching out to her mentally, she could only detect some vague feelings of annoyance and sulking. It wasn’t the first time she'd had to deal with Donna’s tendency to run when she sensed she might be in trouble. _I wonder where she got that from…_ But as long as nothing serious happened, she would just go and have herself a nice, long sulk before talking it all out and apologizing. She couldn’t help imagining what her mother would say if she saw Rose’s current situation. ‘ _Leaving your daughter alone in a magical forest? Are you out of your mind?'_ But her practical mind assessed that there wasn’t anything short of a tractor beam (which the TARDIS didn’t currently possess) that could solve this situation for her. If she wasn’t so vastly outnumbered she would simply ask her husband to take Jack outside and keep an eye on Donna while she figured out what the problem was, but there was no use in wishful thinking when she had more pressing matters to solve.

She carried Jack back with her to the control room, and after an unsuccessful attempt at putting him in his adapted baby car seat (which resulted in a wail so loud that the TARDIS answered in kind), Rose resigned herself to working with Jack strapped into his baby sling. Even adjusting him on the carrier was harder to do by herself, and for the hundredth time that day she wished her husband was there with them.

Normal TARDISes, she had learned, took thousands of years to develop from little corals to ships, and would quite elegantly grow around the controls, batteries and integrated circuits while developing their awareness and time sense, gaining the knowledge of how to navigate the Vortex along the slow passing of the years. The Doctor-Donna had gifted them with not only the little coral, but also with ideas of how to make her grow at a much faster rate – but the whole process of turning a sentient and telepathic piece of coral into a time machine and spaceship was completely up to them. In all his vast array of knowledge, not even the Doctor knew exactly how they could accomplish all of that, and Rose found herself, quite unexpectedly, on equal footing with him on his matter, since she was quite more familiar with both the human and alien tech that this universe had to offer. Therefore, much of their work involved him sketching and outlining all that the TARDIS would need at her current developmental phase, and Rose would make a list of the more probable pieces of existing tech they could use, and, after a huge amount of effort to acquire said parts (memorably once almost selling a newly born Jack to a species who considered humans a delicacy because the grammatical developments of that language were different in this Universe) they would spend months trying to outright _convince_ a quickly growing coral to accept the aforementioned parts through sawing, filing, hacking, tinkering as well as haggling, bargaining and outright pleading with it. 

Up until the previous week, Rose and the Doctor had tackled this challenge – and the extra difficulty of doing it with the little ones always around – as they had promised each other: together and as equals. Especially now that she had a PhD in Physics and he had the lifespan and hormonal oscillations of a human being. Even when their meddling in the wizarding world had first started, it was always the two of them discussing and making plans over cups of tea, breaking into the Ministry trying to find Hermione Granger, convincing scholars and politicians alike of their plan and meeting all those book characters without (much) fangirling. John Noble and Rose Tyler (plus kids, when it wasn’t too dangerous...or when they snuck out of the TARDIS anyway.), now taking over the wizarding world.

But when it was established that they would have to spend more time at Hogwarts, a dilemma arose – as much as they both wanted to be in the castle, the TARDIS just couldn’t be neglected, lest she should suddenly decide she wanted to be a temporally conscious, telepathic trampoline and stopped adapting to the new controls (they still had a trampoline in the children’s playroom as a memento of that particular phase). Their first idea was for them to alternate between taking care of the TARDIS and teaching, taking the kids with them, but Professor McGonagall had shut the idea down claiming how "There is only so much eccentricity I am willing to tolerate concerning your situation."

“Like she’s the one to talk about eccentricity, with that huge pointy hat.” Rose mumbled, while trying to set up a system data check. Every other minute she would have to stop Jack’s hands from pressing some random buttons on the panel (and every now and then thank him for pointing out the right button for her), which made the task slightly slower.

John had suggested flipping a coin, but Rose knew how good a teacher he could be, (and how much better she was at convincing the TARDIS to accept human tech) and left him to be the Professor while she remained Doctor Tyler, tinkering in the TARDIS.

After the third attempt, the TARDIS finally displayed a report of all her installed systems, and nothing seemed to be wrong. Rose took her time checking all the systems individually, "Not that button, Jack dear, we definitely don’t want to delete mummy and daddy’s bedroom, do we?" – no loss of power, no part malfunctioning, and the ship had even been so kind as to retract the telepathic wires back inside the wall after Donna had pulled them out. Yet half an hour had passed, and there were still flashing signs – not mauve, so no mortal danger – in the controls and the screen, as if the TARDIS was trying to tell her something that she still wasn’t properly equipped to say.

“What are you sensing, girl?” Rose asked, putting her palms flat against the time rotor. “How can I talk to you without the proper interface?”

The TARDIS let out what sounded like a cooing sound, a series of beeps and flashed the lights some more.

“Have you been taught Morse code, you smart thing? Should I get some pen and paper?” Rose wondered out loud, when she heard a pop, and a section of the wall opened to reveal the very same telepathic wires that Donna had tried on Jack.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me” Rose grunted. “Instead of growing a telepathic field, you want us to stick yourself inside our brains for communication? Is this how we’re gonna roll?”

Rose was about to reach for the wire when the telepathic part of her mind came alive with screaming.

_MUUUUUUM!_

“DONNA!” With Jack still strapped to her chest, Rose ran out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews and comments are appreciated! :)


	4. New Arrivals (POV the Doctor)

The Doctor I

“No! Who are YOU and what are YOU doing in MY house?!” the little girl shouted, her muddy boots slipping in the pink goo that was oozing from the panel, her grubby hands clutching at the time rotor even more tightly.

His day kept getting worse and worse. First, Clara decided to play Doctor again and mess up his monopoly of reckless experimenting with the TARDIS’ controls. This, of course, had caused the TARDIS to crash and start oozing some pink substance – _Pink of all things, why did it have to be pink?  -_ and have some serious power outage. But all of these problems, that would usually be alarming enough on their own,  seemed to be minor annoyances compared to the huge - no - _humongous_ , ugly fact that was haunting his brain: He was in the same universe as _her._ Which meant, of course, that he was in the same universe as _him._

 _“_ It doesn’t matter whose house it is, you need to get off of there! Now! Out, out, out!”

And now, on top of everything else, there was a tiny ginger human wearing pigtails and muddy boots, spreading dirt and tears and childish sweat of fear all over his beloved TARDIS. And she didn’t seem to have the propensity to obey her elders that he understood most children were trained to have. She seemed frightened alright, but the big pout on her face was more determined than anything, and she didn’t seem likely to obey.  Not even with his attack-eyebrows fully bristling at her. With a nervous glance at the heel of her slipping feet so close to the dematerialisation levers, he figured out it was time for a change of strategy. Maybe a gentler approach could work, as Clara usually told him. With a long-suffering sigh, he reached for the flashcards inside his pocket, and flipped through them quickly, trying to find the most appropriate one.

“Aha! Here it is: I know this situation is scary/upsetting/life threatening/terrifying, and I am sorry for that, but I am trying to make it better/less life threatening/avoiding your terrible death/ dismemberment/loss of loved ones. Let me help you.” He finally lifted his eyes back to the little girl, but the carefully worded polite phrase did not have the desired effect: if anything, her expression changed from fearful to irritated.

“I’m not scared. I don’t need your help. I just want you to go away!”

Maybe talking Time Lord tech would intimidate her into listening to him, then.

“Listen here, tiny human. Your muddy boots are dangerously near the dematerialisation levers of a very delicate spaceship. In fact, it is something called a _time machine,_ which…”

“I know what a TARDIS is, you dumbo”, she interrupted, sliding away from him while still holding unto the time rotor for support.

“Then you know you’re not supposed to press the buttons of the console with your feet!” he exclaimed, going around the controls to face the little girl again. “If you are such a smart little thing, be reasonable and come down so we can figure out what is going on here.” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. The word _reasonable_ seemed to have a sobering effect on the little girl, who tried her best to assume a composed expression – a task that was hindered by the way her boots were still slipping. While he watched the little girl try (unsuccessfully) to climb down by herself, the Doctor started getting a strange feeling. Something about her looked…odd. For one thing, he guessed that human children of that age shouldn’t be quite so knowledgeable about technology – or have the faintest idea of what a TARDIS is – but it wasn’t her precociousness that struck him as odd. Something about the shade of her red hair, or the pitch and tone of her voice, seemed to speak to some thousand-year-old memory. He made his best effort to ignore the tingling in his time-sense and dampen his awareness of that – it wouldn’t be polite to look at such a young person’s timeline, after all. With that precarious attitude, he was almost certain she wouldn’t live that long…

 After some minutes of fumbling around and some frustrated exclamations, the now red-faced girl said sheepishly “I can’t come down without touching the buttons.”

“Yes, yes, that’s the problem with tiny limbs.” he said, raising his eyebrows. “I was trying to tell you this, but you just screamed at me!” He held out his hand. “Come now, I’ll help you down”.

But the moment he clasped her little hand, his time-sense kicked in at full force and almost overwhelmed him. He wasn’t sure if those were visions, memories or even hallucinations, but standing in front of him was one of the biggest regrets in his long, long lives.

“No, no, it can’t be, no no no no no.” he was clutching at her with both of his hands now, searching her young and progressively frightened face. “This can’t be true, my senses must be tampered by the dimension hop, you can’t be…” he all but dragged her down to the ground, kneeling on the floor to get at her height. “…Donna?”

The sound of her name seemed to snap the little girl out of her shock, and she had just started struggling against his grip (“Let go of me, you weirdo!”) when the TARDIS door burst open and another haunting voice echoed through the console room.

“YOU LET GO OF MY DAUGHTER RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We know the chapter is awfully short and we appologise for that, but it has to be like this for now. We promise there are longer, action-packed chapters ahead! ;)


	5. New Arrivals (POV John)

John I

As his mouth was automatically going through the basic instructions about his class, his thoughts couldn’t help but wander to the young woman who was hiding in plain sight at the back of the room.

He'd had a small bout of panic when he felt the mental pull that signified the arrival of another TARDIS nearby. He could only imagine how his own TARDIS would react, and it would definitely drive Rose crazy. The only thing that stopped him from running home right away – along with the fact that it would definitely be a weird thing to do between two lessons, in the middle of a crowded corridor – was the happy realisation that, in this Universe, another TARDIS could only mean one thing: they would succeed in building a time machine, and were now getting a visit from their future.

Although he had mixed feelings about seeing his aged future self, he very much looked forward to seeing his descendants - not only his children, but grandchildren and maybe even great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren. So he kept an eye (and his telepathic and time-senses) open in case there was something noteworthy happening in the grounds.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait long before he could tell the good news to Rose and the kids and proceed to find the time travellers – it was his last lesson for the day and he was quite anxious to see his family again. The fact that a young woman wearing a TARDIS-made perception filter entered his very classroom was, as such, a quite pleasant surprise.

She had brown hair and brown eyes, but her features were only very vaguely familiar so far. Was she a daughter of his that was yet to be born? Maybe even a grand-daughter? A glance at her clothes revealed signs of an early 21st-century style, but she could have dressed in a period costume especially for the trip.

His mind was bubbling with theories by the time he finished his lesson, and he could barely wait until the last third-year exited the classroom before he hastily closed the door.

“Soooo, what do we have here?  What is your name? Oh, no no no no no, don’t tell me your name, especially if you’re my daughter, I want to have the chance of picking it out myself without the risk of having an ugly name be a fixed point in time. No, tell me first who you are in my family tree, and why you chose to go to this particular place in time.” At the girl’s look of utter confusion, he went on:  “Or maybe you came here by accident? Don’t tell me we didn’t manage to build a proper navigation system this time around, that would be a bummer…” Her confusion only deepened, but she didn’t seem frightened, which was a good sign. “Oh, don’t you worry, dear, I’m so excited that you’re here anyway, just tell me where you are in my family tree and then we can figure the rest out as we go.”

But instead of appeasing her, his speech only seemed to make her more and more confused.

“Your… family? What are you talking about, Doctor?”

“Let’s make it simple” he reached inside his overalls (he was supposed to be wearing wizard robes when teaching, but really, wasn’t it close enough?) and took out one of the first magic pictures he had with him. “Which one of these people do you know?”

But the picture frame seemed devoid of people – only a landscape with the Hogwarts Castle in the background.

“Ah, come on…” he rattled the frame a bit. “What use are these stupid moving pictures if no one’s around? Show yourselves, people!”

From the edge of the frame came his little girl, her auburn hair flying wildly as she ran, laughing. She was holding his sonic screwdriver in her hand, making sparks fly out of it while Rose chased right after her, seizing the girl by the middle and twirling her in the air lightly. Right behind, but in a slower pace due to the baby sling attached to his front, came his own image, torn between worry and amusement at his girls’ antics while the baby clapped and giggled.

“So this tiny little fella is Jack Noble – look at that, it’s only been a few months and he’s gotten so big! And the little pest holding the sonic screwdriver is my oldest, Donna. The beautiful woman holding her would be their mother, Rose Tyler, and of course, this is me, John Noble, very nice to meet you.”

Taking his eyes off the picture, his fond smile waned as he noticed that the look of confusion in the girl’s face was quickly replaced by shock. A tiny pool of dread started to collect in the pit of his stomach, as his human hormones began to fuel the slightest bit of fear. “Don’t you know any of us, then?”

“I know you” she said, the expression in her eyes turning into that of anger. “I will meet you in the future, with another face, and spend years listening to you lamenting the fact that you were completely alone in the world since the Time War, and here you are with a wife and kids that you just what, forgot about?!?”

“Oi, it’s completely unfair for you to be mad at me because of something I haven’t done, even if future me just hasn’t done it _yet,_ and…” Suddenly, the full implications of her accusation hit him. This girl was confused not because she didn’t recognise him, but because she had absolutely no idea who he was. In fact, she didn’t know him at all. She only knew _him_.

_She’s probably another companion, another pair of awestruck eyes and brave heart for him to ruin._ With the holes between dimensions sealed, he had automatically assumed that he and his family would be the only time travellers around. But if the fully-Time-Lord Doctor was back… _Did he come back for Rose?_ His single heart started hammering furiously in his chest. John suddenly grabbed the girl’s arm and looked deeply into her eyes, startling her slightly. “You mean _he_ is here? The Doctor? Did he come here with you?”

“Yes, but he wanted to stay in the TARDIS, probably sensed your…”

He couldn’t even hear her over the thundering he felt in his ears.

“Oh fuck, this is an absolute nightmare.” letting go of her suddenly, he pulled at his own hair, his face crumpling in panic as he walked in circles in the empty classroom. He barely registered the expression of shock his words produced in the girl as she watched him silently.

“Fucking perfect. Now here comes the Time Lord, waltzing in with his fucking new regeneration and fucking superior biology, in a fucking working TARDIS to…” his thoughts were racing a mile a minute, and the cold sweat he felt on his brow seemed to burn with the newfound awareness of his _humanness_.

_Is he here for Rose? And would she…_

He leaned his arms against the wall, staring out the window in the direction of the TARDIS. He felt as if his world had tilted on its axis, and felt so stupid for feeling so _safe_ in this Universe, even if he was just a finite spark in a huge and unknown space. He let himself get immersed in their plans, their family, let himself believe that somehow his broken and imperfect self, this spit of a messed-up regeneration, could be a protagonist of his own life, could step out of the shadow of the Time Lord that had accidentally caused his creation and set up the love of his life to be his jailer in exile…

As if guessing the direction of his thoughts, the girl broke his reverie: “I’m sorry but… Why are you saying _him?_ Are you not the previous regeneration of the Doctor?”

“I’m a human, biological meta-crisis.” John answered through the lump in his throat, his voice rough. “I’m basically a part-human hybrid. I imagine he hasn’t told you about his last regeneration…”

“He only mentioned he wasted one regeneration because of vanity issues…”

“Yes.” The words felt like lead in his mouth. “A waste of regeneration, that’s me.” He felt the moisture gathering behind his eyes and willed himself not to sound even more pathetic and lose his composure in front of a stranger. But even the enormous effort it was taking to keep himself from breaking down could not distract him from the fresh wave of fear that crashed into his mind.

Before he could even fully process the source of it, his legs were taking him out of the door, closely followed by a very mystified young woman. For the time being, even his most deeply rooted self-loathing thoughts were completely wiped out of his mind, leaving one single, urgent beacon of emergency as he raced out of the castle and through the grounds:

“DONNA!”


	6. New Arrivals (POV the Doctor II)

The Doctor II

She was pointing a gun at his head.

A thousand years since he saw her last, so many lonely years filled with regret, so many things left unsaid, thousands of conversations he’d had in his head, and so many scenarios he had come up in fits of fancy, imagining the impossible… And now she had a gun pointed at his head. And yet another human child strapped to her middle.

It had been more than a thousand years for him. How many years was it for her?

_No more than ten_ , his time sense told him, even though time didn’t seem to have treated her very kindly. The woman who stood before him was very different from the valiant child he had known and fallen for. Her eyes were sharp and alert as ever – but her gaze held no trace of the former sweetness and wonder that she reserved for the TARDIS every time she passed through her door. There was fire in her eyes alright – a white-hot fury directed at him with the evenness that spoke of years of fighting more than running. Her harsh gaze was tempered by the dark circles under her eyes that spoke of a tiredness and a hint of vulnerability, accentuated by the slight lines on her face that deepened with her frown.  He was somewhat startled to find that she was wearing no makeup whatsoever, and  her hair  wasn’t  pulled back in a careless and messy bun, but was hanging limpl around her face. Her body was taut with tension, but she no longer had the lithe figure of her youth, but the body that had been through the strains of _childbearing_.

And she had a gun pointed at his head. That was the saddest change of them all.

The Doctor let go of the child, her mystifying identity temporarily forgotten.

Donna immediately ran to her mother, hugging her waist. Rose reached out with her free hand to caress the girl’s hair, but didn’t take her gaze off the Doctor. With a pang of sadness the Doctor noticed that the little girl hid behind her mother but dared not let her unshed tears fall, becoming eerily quiet, as if she knew how to deal with tense situations such as these. She didn’t even bat an eye at the fact that her mother was threatening another person with a weapon.

“Right. Now you’re going to tell me who you are, and what you are doing in this TARDIS. Did you steal it? Did you travel here by accident? Did you…” she lowered her gun slightly while calculating possibilities. “Are you, like, one of my great-grandchildren or something?”

“Oh, Rose…” he said, looking into her eyes and allowing a somewhat bitter smile to grace his features. “You were never good with new faces.”

The gun slipped from her hands and her eyes widened. “Doctor?”

The sound of the gun clattering on the floor invoked the memory of the last time they saw each other after a long separation, long ago in that Dalek-filled street. She had dropped her gun immediately to run into his arms, back then. And the reckless things he would have done had he not been shot… _In a way, these children were caused by that Dalek,_ he mused.

“After all these years...” she said, still trying to recognize those old, old eyes within his now older-looking face. Her voice was soft and slightly broken, as if speaking above a mere whisper would dispel some illusion and he would be gone. Despite the forced neutral expression on her face, there was no masking the myriad emotions that passed through the eyes that he knew so well. He saw surprise, anger, a good measure of fear and maybe just a little bit of fleeting awe on the edges of her shock-dominated consciousness.

“I take it these two are yours, then…” he pointed vaguely at the direction of the two children, and little Donna raised her head from behind her mother’s legs just enough to stick his tongue out at him.

_And his,_ the Doctor thought, with a bitter note. If a little girl who called a time machine home wasn’t enough, the messy brown hair and wide brown eyes of the toddler reminded him eerily of his prior incarnation. And the little girl…

Rose took a moment to answer, her eyes still a bit glazed. “Yes, yes they are. You gave little Donna quite a scare,” she said, her hand resting protectively on her daughter’s head once more.

“I’m not little, Dad says I have an adequate height for my age…” the girl in question chimed in, looking up at her mother.

Rose’s face softened as she addressed her daughter. “In this case, I’m using ‘little’ to talk about you because there is another Donna we both knew…”

Donna turned to say something else, but as she saw Rose’s gaze shifting towards the Doctor again, she held her peace and went back to hiding behind her mother’s legs.

Once again the Doctor was puzzled: _How did she get her to shut up so easily?_ Not even the little baby was making any sound, even though his brown eyes were wide with alarm and his lower lip was trembling slightly. But it was only when the little girl noticed the gun on the ground, picked it up and handed it stock-first to her mother, that he realised he had seen it all before. All through the Universe there were some children that would be quiet and serious in situations where all others were wild, loud and unrestrained, who knew instinctively how to handle situations that would leave other children terrified. _These are war children_. _Used to dangerous situations where their lives depend on being still while their parents are dealing with the Enemy…_

With his sadness also came anger towards his former counterpart: what had he done with the chance he’d been given? In his better moments he had always envisioned either a quiet, human life with a house and a garden full of energetic children or a string of daring adventures around the world, and even eventually space – but he would never have pictured Rose, _his Rose_ , as a stressed-out house-wife with little hybrid war children, living in a constant state of fear and alarm while _her human Doctor_ was cavorting around, getting himself mixed up with wizardkind and God knows what else.

He was about to ask where the object of his anger was when the doors burst open once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear readers, we sincerely apologise for the delay in posting. As it so often happens, life and its many responsibilities got in the way of Lily_Dragon, and myself, as well as in the way of our trusty beta reader. We are now in full attendance again and will continue posting at our regular schedule.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Eruanna & Lily


	7. New Arrivals (POV Clara II)

Clara II

Even though Clara had already done her fair share of running in her time with the Doctor, she was quite out of breath when she finally reached the TARDIS, trying and failing to keep up with the Doctor’s long legs and desperate sprint. So many thoughts crossed her mind in her mad dash to try and follow the Not-Quite-the-Doctor. Most of all, how remarkable the existence of the man in front of her was. She could clearly recognize the Doctor – not only because she had seen this incarnation before, but his speech and disposition, and mostly, those ancient eyes that Clara knew so well, were just the same. Yet now that she knew better, there were undeniable changes: his hair had some stray silvery strands appearing here and there; the lines around his eyes and mouth were more pronounced, not to mention than the run actually made him dishevelled and sweaty. There had also been more raw emotion than she had ever seen the Doctor display, and _God Almighty, the gallant Tenth Doctor is swearing!_

He took out his sonic screwdriver to open the lock of the TARDIS and burst right in, the door slamming shut in his wake.  When Clara finally caught up, she leaned  against the blue wall for a few seconds, reaching for the key around her neck and mentally preparing herself for the chaotic scene that she was sure to find when she opened those doors.

The Not-Quite-the-Doctor ( _he said he was called John, but it wasn’t John Smith. What was it again?)_ was kneeling on the floor, his arms around the little girl from the picture. He was touching her temple lightly with one of his hands, while the girl hugged him just as tightly with one hand while she tried to wipe her tears with the other. The mother and the baby were right next to them, the little one trying to hide his head under his mother’s jacket while she had an alien-looking gun in her hand, pointing it in the direction of the door – and therefore, Clara – as it opened again.

But the weirdest thing of all was that the Doctor, of all things, was staring at his counterpart with a disgust so profound that Clara had hardly ever seen take over his features. He didn’t even seem to notice that she had come in. _Nor that there's an alien-looking gun pointed in my general direction, not that I mind it that much, anyway_.

Clara just stared at the tense scene before her in apprehensive silence, until John took his hand off his daughter’s head, seeming satisfied that she was safe and sound. He slowly stood up and held the girl in his arms , her little arms holding on tightly to his neck. It was only then that he noticed that Clara had followed him, and assessed the situation in the rest of the ship. His eyebrows shot up when he saw the gun in the woman’s hand.

“It’s okay, Rose, she’s his companion. I think we won’t need the blaster.”

Only now realising she hadn’t moved, Rose started and put the gun down, keeping a firm grip on it all the same.

“Of course, a companion.” she said softly, her gaze slowly turning from hostile to curious, albeit too slowly for Clara’s liking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…”

“Clara Oswald, Earth, 21st century, companion of the Doctor for many years, on and off, nanny and teacher in my downtime.” she supplied, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. Rose still had a gun in her hand, after all.

The whole situation seemed almost surreal to Clara. She had witnessed first-hand how a meeting between different incarnations of the Doctor had the potential to be tense and fraught with conflict, but never would she have imagined that it could result in so much hostility. A few frowns, bouts of sarcasm and criticism about TARDIS decoration, for sure, but guns and crying children? _What on earth is going on here?_

“I’m Rose Tyler, and I’m sure this whole situation must be confusing to you as much as it is to us.” her voice was even and not unfriendly. _At the very least someone else in this situation seems to be sensible._

_“_ Daddy, what are they doing in the TARDIS?” asked the little girl, her face still buried in her father’s neck. John, who had been glaring at the Doctor up to that point, softened his expression to address his daughter.

“This is not our TARDIS, darling. Couldn’t you tell by the size of her?” he nodded in the direction of thehigh ceiling and the doors that led to the adjoining rooms. “This one is an old girl, Donna.”

Comprehension dawned on the little girl’s face.

“I thought she had just gone through a growth spurt after I connected Jack to the telepathic wires.” she explained.

Despite the tenseness of the situation, the girl’s parents exchanged glances – his amused, hers exasperated – but before they could comment on it, Clara interjected.

“So, wait, you have a TARDIS and it is not an earlier version of this one? Does that mean you're building your own TARDIS?

“More like growing a TARDIS, but yes.” answered John, while the little girl climbed down to inspect the walls of the ship more closely, touching an exposed piece of coral and closing her eyes. “From a little piece of coral of the old girl, here.” He looked around wistfully before continuing, his voice turning bitter. “The piece _his_ former companion gave us before- “

“It’s quite a long story.” Rose interrupted him, rubbing her forehead as if to soothe a forming headache. “How much did the Doctor tell you about us when you came here?”

“Nothing at all.” Clara said, watching worriedly as John became more and more agitated “Actually, we…”

“Isn’t this typical?” he snarled. Now that he had made sure that his daughter was out of immediate danger, his full attention was focused on returning the Doctor’s hateful stare. “Has this one become too much for you, too? Came to drop her off on the other side of the Void, but got interrupted?”

Suddenly Rose’s posture shifted, her eyes hardening and focusing on the Doctor, who scoffed.

“What? This is ridiculous. I would never abandon Clara…”

“Like you abandoned me?” the rest of the audience jumped a bit at Rose’s loud and ragged voice.

“You see, Clara,” John said quietly, a dark expression on his face, “The reason for our being in this alternate universe is because he unintentionally created me through a botched regeneration and wanted me out of the way permanently.”

“How dare you speak like this?!? I gave you an opportunity at a better life, and this is how-” the Doctor’s booming voice echoed through the TARDIS, but it was no match for John’s rage.

“This HYPOCRITE took it upon himself to decide that I was too dangerous to exist in the same Universe as him and, to make things worse, up and left the girl who crossed dimensions to find him stranded here as my jailer!”

Another tense silence fell upon the TARDIS, broken by Donna, who was staring at her parents with a bewildered look:

“You went to jail, Daddy? Who was this jailer?”

“That was me, sweetie.” there were tears threatening to spill from Rose’s eyes, and her attempt at being calm and reassuring was undermined by her shaky voice. She took a deep breath and looked at John. “And I really think you shouldn’t be hearing about these things in this way, Donna…”

“And you know what? Neither should I.” Clara interjected, to everyone’s surprise.

At that point in the conversation, she had had enough. It seemed that the three other adults in the situation had quite a lot of dirty laundry to do, and she wasn’t about to be a silent and awkward witness to a huge bout of _domestics_. No matter if there was time travel, alternate realities or even multiple TARDIS involved –  there was some bad blood amongst the Doctor, his double and his former companion, and she didn’t want to be a part of it – not when there was such a fascinating world to explore out there anyway.

“Let me know when you’re done with your _domestic,_ ” she shot an irritated glance at the Doctor “because I’m outta here.”

“I think you should go with her, Donna.” John said, trying to make his voice softer. “This is a story we’ll have to tell you at another time. Why don’t you show Clara the Giant Squid?”

“But Dad…”

“Come on, Donna.” Taking pity on the little girl, Clara crouched to her level, smiling. “I bet they are just going to be angry at each other over stupid things that happened before you were born. There are so many interesting things to see outside!”

The little girl looked at her mother, a worried look still on her face.

“Go on, sweetheart, we’ll be right here.”

With a last worried glance at her parents, Donna went slowly in the direction of the door, but when Clara made to follow her, John halted her movements with a hand on her shoulder.

“You seem like a nice girl, Clara, but even so, a word of warning.” his voice was deceptively soft, but the intensity in those stormy eyes was unmistakable “Our family is telepathically linked, and if Donna gets harmed in any way, _I will know_.” His grip on her shoulder tightened, and she shuddered at the darkness in his voice. “and you will regret it. Deeply.”

He released her shoulder slowly, and his expression only softened when he turned to look at his daughter once more.

“As for you, darling, remember rule number one.”

“The Doctor always lies?” Clara was completely bewildered. Why on Earth would he say such a thing to his own daughter?

“Don’t wander off.” Donna said, frowning. “That’s rule number one.”

With one last look at the tense atmosphere of the TARDIS control room, Clara was gently led by the little girl out the door.


	8. New Arrivals (POV John II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tempers are high and 12 is an ass...you know, the usual :P

John II

A leaden silence fell over the TARDIS as soon as the door closed. John Noble observed the other two occupants of the control room. He could feel the blood thrumming in his ears as his pitiful single heart strained to deal with the bouts of adrenaline running through his veins. His chest felt constricted and there was a huge lump forming in his throat – and, worst of all, he knew that it had very little to do with the distance he had just run. After more than 900 years of being a Time Lord, some aspects of his new, human and fallible biology still haunted him. And seeing the full Time Lord in front of him, his face stern and impassive, glaring at him with his even more ancient and inscrutable eyes, was just one more painful reminder of his own shortcomings.

With the assurance that Donna was safe, the fears that had been pushed to the dark corners of his mind now returned at full force.

“So, _Doctor,_ what do you have to say for yourself?” Rose’s voice startled John out of his staring contest with the Time Lord, and he turned to find his wife also staring at the Gallifreyan, her posture tense, arms crossed in front of her chest, blaster still loosely held in her fingers. “You told us it was impossible to cross dimensions without the Universe collapsing and yet here you are.”

“I thought it _was_ impossible.” He turned his back on them, spreading his hands over the control panel and muttering to himself. “The telepathic circuits overrode the-“

“Don’t you dare hide behind TARDIS-talk now!” Rose’s voice pitched up. “You abandon us here, and show up out of the blue _years_ later… Don’t you think you owe us at least an explanation?

“It is very clear that I made the right decision by banishing the Meta-crisis. You just threatened Clara for no reason!” The Doctor turned his stormy eyes back to John.

“You don’t get to tell me it’s wrong to want to protect my daughter.” John's voice forced its way out of his throat to form words despite the constrictive feeling, his eyes quickly flitting from Rose to the Doctor. Did she believe him? “Besides, have you done so much better if you deceive people to the point where Rule N. 1 becomes ‘The Doctor always lies?’”

“I do what I must to protect people. All of them.” The Doctor’s voice was cutting and cold, his calm ever more apparent as John felt his biologically-fuelled restlessness grow. “You, on the other hand, have failed utterly to protect these few. Rose is but a shadow of the girl I remember, and I remember her. More than a thousand years later, and I still remember- “

“I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s been _years_ since you left.” Rose cut in angrily. “Of course I’m not the same girl you left behind. I’ve had to deal with the fact that the man I most trusted abandoned me, betrayed me and left without telling me.”

“The Universe was collapsing, we had little time-“

“Oh please, you spent all that time talking to everyone, but none actually allowing me to properly decide-“

“You would have decided wrong, you weren’t thinking-“

“So YOU knew so much better than me what to-”

“I am a Time Lord, of course I know better than you!”

John watched the argument evolve into a shouting match, dread creeping up his spine with every word. He had been there with Rose, been at that very point, years ago – accusations, hurt and anger on both sides. But they had healed together. At least he thought they had. The Doctor’s presence, however, seemed to have dredged up all the old memories – along with his own guilt and anger, his old friends.

The Doctor and Rose only stopped shouting when one of Jack’s anguished shrieks drowned out their words. John was beside Rose in two large strides, brushing his son’s temples with his fingertips. _It’s ok, Jack. You’re safe with Mum and Dad. The Frowny Man is not going to get you._ But, as hard as he tried to keep his mind clear and calm, the clever toddler seemed to pick up the hefty dose of fear and anger that plagued his father, and cried even harder.

“John, you’re not helping right now!” Rose hissed as she brushed his hands away, walking with Jack to a quieter corner and leaving John with a feeling of emptiness. Maybe the Time Lord was right. Maybe he _had_ failed to protect his wife, his children. Maybe he was just too broken from the start. Maybe-

“If you really must know, I was a bit of a coward in that regeneration.” The Time Lord’s voice sounded hollow, almost tired as Jack’s crying finally gave way to quieter whimpers. “I couldn’t bear seeing the disappointment in your face, Rose. I would have had to make you understand the difficult decision I had to make, and I was even fighting myself on it. Believe me when I say it was a very hard decision to leave you with him.” His voice got softer despite the sharp angles of his accent, almost affectionate by the end, and it was too much for John to take.

“Maybe you should have just let me die and given her a shot at having the Universe.” John was staring at the floor, no strength left to face either the Time Lord or Rose.

“Stop the pity party right there, John, we’re not going there again.” Rose’s voice was sharp, even if she spoke in quieter tones for Jack’s sake. “We both know very well that the Doctor was trying his best to get rid of me.”

“Humans and their incredible arrogance!” exclaimed the Doctor, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “I was trying to give you a fantastic life, Rose! I was trying to give you a chance to live as a human and be happy! It’s not my fault you have ruined it by being a stressed-out housewife with war-traumatized babies!"

John knew what was coming by the set of Rose’s jaw and the blazing anger in her eyes, so he  wordlessly accepted Jack when she calmly handed him the baby, marched up to the Doctor and gave him a resounding slap.

"I’m not listening to this anymore." She hissed. She spun on her heel, wordlessly took her son back from John and walked towards the door "I don't have time for this rubbish, I have a time machine to fix."  They heard her mutter as she passed the threshold and slammed the TARDIS door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, we know, the chapter is extremely short and we apologise, but believe us, it is for clarity's sake and they will lengthen very soon, we promise!


	9. And way down we go...

(POV Rose)

 

Rose slammed the TARDIS door shut after she left, barely managing to suppress her rage in order to avoid upsetting little Jack, who was already shaken.

Whoever that prick of a man was, it was not her Doctor. She had seen him be rude, angry and even unhinged, but never that cruel. And to say she had wasted her life? That Rose Tyler, PhD in temporal physics, helping a time machine grow alongside her loving family, had wasted her life? He didn’t know them, or their story. Hell, he didn’t even know her anymore…

Yes, she had been wasting her potential away when she was young, working in a shop and going out for chips around the corner with her mum or boyfriend and envisioning no life beyond that. But after all she had been through, all the travelling and the wonders but also all the fighting and suffering she was as from that girl as she could get while still being herself. She had grown, she had changed and withstood all the difficulties to build a life, a real life, for herself, for _them._ And what had he done? He may have changed his face and even his personality, but there he was, same as before, dropping out of the sky, crashing into people's lives with a young, wide-eyed girl in tow, not caring for the wreckage he caused and left in his wake. Admittedly, she had loved every second of it when she was the girl in question… So was her cynicism because she was the one standing on the other side now?  Sarah Jane would have a field day if she saw Rose like that.

Even while lost in thought, her feet had carried her back to their own TARDIS, and she went straight to the children’s room, setting Jack down gently in the cushioned floor.

“I’m so sorry, little one, Daddy and me didn’t meant to startle you like that”. She stroked her son’s soft brown hair and he blinked at her, eyes still moist and accusing.

She could feel her son calm down slowly as the soothing thrum of the TARDIS wrapped around them like a safety blanket, both a sound and a presence in the back of their minds. Jack had  unusually strong telepathic abilities, which at his young age was more confusing and scary than useful for an emphatic little boy.  She usually hesitated in letting him out of the TARDIS, where he would soak up the emotions and thoughts of strangers like a sponge, his untrained mind still unable to shield itself. John had explained to her that Time Lord adults helped their youngsters by shielding their own thoughts and emotions until the little ones could do it for themselves – but unless she only took Jack to advanced Occlumency practises, this wasn’t really an option. Usually John would help their son with his own telepathic abilities, but right now he was just making it worse…

She disciplined herself quickly to clamp down on the fear and worry that started rising as she thought of John. The defeat and self-loathing in his expression when he talked to his fully Time Lord counterpart was terribly familiar, but Rose had hoped beyond hope that she would never have to see it again on his face…

 She could understand that he would be upset, but it was alarming to see how quickly he fell into old, unhealthy patterns. It was almost like watching old scars breaking open again, bleeding hurt where she thought they had already healed – and, to be quite honest, she could feel some of it happening to herself, as well. He was back. He remembered her. That impossible man who turned her life around, looking down on her again for being stuck in a linear timeline…

A small hand tugging on her sleeve startled her back to the present, and Rose reined her thoughts in again, focusing on the little boy sitting on the floor in front of her. She didn’t have the luxury of delving into her own dramas when her son needed her. No matter what this new Doctor came for, her family came first. If only John could put his issues on hold for a minute to help her with Jack…

He seemed much calmer now, tear tracks drying on his plump face, but his inquisitive stare didn’t waver.

“It’s a very complicated situation, we never expected any of this to happen…” she spoke up again. Rose didn’t know how much of her words Jack would actually understand, but it did not hurt to try to encourage him to talk – not to mention how putting her own feelings in order helped to calm him as well. “We might be all upset and a bit angry right now, but we love you and your sister very much, and won’t let anything happen to you.”

Jack seemed to accept her words and emotions – at least her telepathic headache was receding – but he didn’t take his eyes off his mother, reaching his chubby little hand to clutch at her jacket again.

Rose picked him up, sitting him with his back against her chest and breathing in his sweet baby scent.

He stretched his little arms up towards her temples, and the now-familiar stream of images and sounds brushed at Rose’s mind: _huge legs, wild hair, strong arms, warm, safe, bright_.

“Daddy is still in the other TARDIS” Rose answered. “Why don’t you try to say Daddy, Jack? Da-ddy.”

He remained stubbornly silent, pulling at her hair with one hand while the other also went to her temple: _Bright controls blinking, a loud, booming voice, the sensation of running, a tint of fear._

“I know the older man seems scary, but I don’t think he would do anything to Daddy, Jack. You don’t need to worry..”

_Pain, blinding fear, muffled sobbing against a pillow, the bathroom door cracked open in the night as John sat down on the floor, Rose bent over him as he struggled to breathe_.

“You weren’t supposed to see this!” Rose tried to pry her son’s hands from her temples with shaking hands. How had he seen that? Had he been awake that night?

It took her a few seconds to realise that the foreign feelings of fear and anxiety were still there, even with the telepathic connection with Jack dimmed. By now Jack was even more agitated, disentangling himself from her lap to waddle unsteadily towards the door. He was not asking about his Daddy – he had been trying to warn her!

For the second time that day, Rose swooped her youngest son into her arms and rushed to the other TARDIS, unable to conceal the fear and worry that had her heart hammering in her chest.

_Oh no, John, please, not again…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers! It's been a long time since we've updated and we apologise for the long wait! Unfortunately both Lily_Dragon and I received some pretty nasty blows in the private life department during these past couple of months. Illnesses and a family crisis on both our ends kept us dashing hither and dither until we were ready to collapse! But we are happy to report that the time of trepidation is over and that we can finally return to writing our story!
> 
> As always, reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome and very much appreciated.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Eruanna


	10. Fault and faulty

POV: The Doctor III

The human meta-crisis was defective. There was no doubt about it. Whatever his stupid, silly previous regeneration had thought at that moment, putting all that regeneration energy into his severed hand had been a mistake.

Just look at him go.

His intellectual capacity might not be so affected – except for his raging emotions, he could do verbal sparring quite well. Well, to be fair, what they had been doing was far more similar to a verbal territorial dispute between Beasts of Traal (where the tongues could be the venomous tentacles and their arguments the massive blows, but no eye contact was avoided).

No, his problems were not intellectual. They were moral. He was interfering in this world to an unbelievable degree. He was exposing his growing TARDIS to an entire group of humans. And Rose, look at what he did to Rose! Carrying guns in one hand and frightened babies in the other. And the little girl’s name was Donna! Not only her name, but…

Clever enough with his Time Lord brain, but just human enough to ruin it all. 

And of course, it was the Doctor’s job to educate him on his failures. It was his creation, after all, and his responsibility to deal with. And after all, if the Meta-Crisis had retained his mind, he would fully understand his point of view, and perhaps even take some steps to correct it.

Not that his no-longer-double would agree to that, of course. His human body fuelled his temper, breath short and dilated pupils as he answered savagely, dredging up painful aspects of their shared past mixed with insights he had cooked up during his exile in this Universe. He shouted about the Time War, about his weakness for humans, but at some point he mentioned Donna Noble, and it was too much even for his superior biology and mental tenacity to deal with.  After that, he had to admit, things had gotten slightly uglier. The Doctor was shouting, too, about genocide and Daleks, about selfishness and sacrifice…

But the problem was that, in the middle of their shouting match, his human counterpart’s throat constricted and he wouldn’t speak anymore.

The Doctor watched, impassive, as the semi-human before him clawed at his own neck, loosening his tie while his pitiful human lungs worked in overdrive, hiccupping and hitching in pathetic sounds that made the Doctor’s mouth curl downwards. And were those _tears_ in his eyes?

He waited, figuring that this reaction might be just another human outburst of emotion, but the symptoms didn’t abate. He was leaning against one of the walls of the TARDIS now, covering his face with one hand while the other pulled at his own hair, still gasping and panting as he slowly sunk to the floor. The pattern in the gasping seemed to change, and with a start the Doctor realised that he was still trying to speak to him.

“Please…” he forced out between breaths, trembling from the effort. “Do… Whatever… Just don’t… Take… My children…” he crumpled upon himself even more, and the Doctor took a step back from the situation, assessing the symptoms. Was it a human thing, or was this hybrid unstable?

He was about to look for the bookshelf on human medical texts when the door to the TARDIS burst open again to reveal Rose, even more haggard and tired, carrying the baby in her arms.

Once again, she was furious.

“What did you do to him?” she started towards the meta-crisis, but hesitated when the little human started crying again. She froze, looking between her son and the man crumpled on the floor. She stood there undecided for a few moments, before her eyes flickered to the Doctor. Making up her mind, she marched up to the Time Lord and handed him the baby.

“Out. Now.” She said, pushing him in the direction of the door. “Bring him somewhere calm, but keep him close. And I’ll _kill you_ if Jack gets hurt.”

His impressively superior brain didn’t even have time to process the threat before he was out of the door, with a drooling and crying little human weight in his arms. He turned to watch the TARDIS, and he could just watch how Rose ran towards the meta-crisis and knelt in front of him before his own ship shut her doors in his face, showing her displeasure.

The Doctor looked around, trying to find a suitable surface to leave the crying baby, but the squirming mass in his arms quickly quieted, his eyes widening as his snotty little fingers reached for his coat buttons.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what is so interesting that you-“

It was then that the Doctor felt a tiny, but insistent presence trying to reach past his mental shields.

His jaw dropped, and he stared at the little squirming bundle with renewed interest. Telepathic half-Time Lord offspring. As if his day couldn’t get any stranger…

He sent a tentative sliver of thought his way – an old Gallifreyan nursery rhyme – and the little one smiled, his mind following along with the lilting melody of his mother tongue.

The baby reached up to clutch at the Doctor’s temples, pushing images and sounds through his mind – but still no words. Didn’t human children already talk by that age?

He tried to look again in his surroundings for a place to set the baby down, but the little one seemed to sense his intention and sent a stream of pain through their psychic link.

“Ow, you devious little creature, no wonder your Mum is so stressed…”


	11. Coping

POV Clara:

The sky was already growing dark, and the conversation topics were getting more and more imaginative (such as how centaurs would sit in a lesson if they couldn’t sit at a desk, and how a school desk for centaurs would have to look like), when Donna suddenly stopped talking and seemed to listen to some faraway sound, furrowing her brow.

“I think we can come back now.” she said, standing up and brushing grass off her trousers.

“How do you know that?” Clara reckoned the Doctor – Professor Noble, now – was a strong telepath, given his reaction at Donna’s distress earlier, but how would a little girl have such precise information?

“Daddy's stopped crying.” she said, simply. “So I think they started being _reasonable_ and we can come back and talk to them without things getting nasty.” She waited for Clara to stand up, rocking on her heels slightly. The little girl’s nonchalant attitude broke Clara’s heart a little, and she wasn’t quick enough to hide the pitying look on her face.

“What?”Donna said, putting her hands on her waist and fixing her with a stern look. “Didn’t anybody tell you that grownups cry, too?”

Choosing her words carefully, Clara tried to answer: “It’s just that… Well, I know that, but… Usually the grownups try not to do it, or at least try to hide it from everyone, especially the kids.”

Donna shrugged and reached for her hand, guiding them slowly towards the TARDIS. “My parents can dampen the telepathic link so we won’t be worried, but sometimes I hear them at night.” she said, looking at the ground. “Mum says that when it hurts way deep inside, trying to hide it will only make it hurt more, and you’ll never really heal”. Suddenly, she turned her bright eyes to Clara. “So why hide it away?”

In times such as these, Clara simultaneously loved and hated working with children.

“Some people think,” Clara began and was surprised to hear how shaky her voice sounded to her own ears, “that you can sort of forget about it if you keep running away. They think their problems might be too big to face.”

“Do you run away?” she asked, with a measuring look. “You know, you’re cool and you understand enough of the world not to be annoying. If you do it because that evil Doctor man doesn’t like hugging, I can hug you to make you feel better.”

“That is very sweet of you, Donna, ” she said, smiling to see if the lump that had been slowly forming in her throat would subside. “I’ll keep that in mind if I get sad again.”

And with this mood hanging over them, the two girls walked up to the old TARDIS hand in hand, to see the Doctor holding a squirming baby at arm’s length, trying hard not to make eye contact and simultaneously keeping Jack from sucking on his cuff links.

 

“Clara! Since you have the other tiny human, would you mind taking this one?” Clara reached for the baby with a long-suffering sigh, but the moment his little hands touched her arms he recoiled, clinging to the Doctor.

“Now that’s a first…"

"What?" The Doctor tried again, to much the same effect."No, get off, she's the one that actually likes little drooling beasts like yourself." He struggled with the toddler, trying to hand him over, while Jack in turn stubbornly clutched at the Doctor's lapels.

"Well, this day just keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?" Clara mused in astonishment as she watched the scene before her.

"Don't mind him, he's stupid like that." Donna said huffily, "He doesn't like anyone who can't talk to him in their head."

"Oh, he's telepathic! Of course!" Understanding dawned on the Doctor's wrinkled face. "When he gets older he'll understand that it is rude to discriminate against simpler life forms." He said to Clara in what he clearly thought to be an understanding sort of way.

"Oy, who are you calling simple-?" Clara bristled but Donna had already grabbed her hand and was pulling her into the TARDIS.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POV Donna:

Now that she wasn't so surprised (because of course she had NOT been scared) the old TARDIS looked really cool! It was huge, full of bookshelves and blinking lights and the TARDIS' song in her mind was... deeper, calmer... different. It reminded Donna a bit of the way Mama sang to her before bedtime. She really wanted to go beyond the set of double doors she saw at the top of the stairs to the side, to see if the TARDIS really _could_ have and endless number of rooms. But when she tried to take a step towards the stairs, she realised that Clara was still holding her hand. In fact her grip was starting to get a little too tight for comfort and it was then that Donna noticed that outside of the hum of the TARDIS, the room lay in complete silence. The scary old man who had followed them inside, still holding baby Jack had his bushy grey eyebrows all knitted and was glaring at her dad who was sitting in a corner next to her mum. Her Dad still had the puffy eyes and pale face one got when one was really sad, but his mouth was set in the same way like when their TARDIS starts spitting out the new parts he had just installed, or when the wizards were being "shitheads and bigots"... whatever that meant. But it was Mum's expression that really worried her. She wasn't angry or worried... she was scared! And her mummy was never scared of anything! She was the bravest mummy in the world and if the bad-tempered old man could get _her_ scared, then they were all in big trouble! Donna pulled her hand out of Clara's and ran to her parents, who both wrapped their arms around her, settling her between them, which made her feel a little better.

Then Clara spoke up. "Ok... I don't understand what exactly happened here... and I'm pretty sure I don't even want to know." She looked at the Doctor and sighed. "And as much as I would love to get to hang around Hogwarts, it's obvious that it would be best for everyone involved if we got out of here as soon as possible."

Her words seemed to shake everyone present out of their respective strange moods. Dad got up and his voice, though shaky at first, got stronger as he slipped into 'science mode'. "Right," he said "If the jump between the dimensions caused a short circuit in the Time Rotor-"

"Of course it did, you half-pudding-brain!" the rude old man interrupted him. "That is why we have to wait at least a few days-"

"But we have a second TARDIS, old man," John interrupted him just as rudely. "And we can use it to help jumpstart the old one's Time Rotor enough to initiate her self-repair program."

Donna felt her mum relax next to her and snuggled in closer. The situation appeared to be returning to a more normal level.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POV Rose:

Between two Time Lords and a LOT of interstellar techno-babble, the solution ended up being as simple as kick-starting a car battery. With a last wistful look at the old TARDIS, Rose took her daughter by the hand and slowly walked to their own future time machine. As she stepped through the bark-like door of the tree-trunk-looking little TARDIS, Rose absent-mindedly passed her hand over the closest exposed coral wall in a caress. After being inside the ancient, fully-developed time machine it felt a bit strange to go back to their own comparatively tiny control room. She let her eyes wander over the half-installed light panels, the adapted church-organ keyboard and video game joystick that were placed side-by-side and tried hard not to compare them to the sleek controls that were so familiar to her once. But when she looked further, at the other side of the coral wall adorned with Jack's and Donna's little multi-coloured handprints, she felt a wave of pride in their little ship. She was young, her controls were a mish-mash of human and alien technology and they barely knew what they were doing more than half of the time, but it was _their_ ship! One that they were building... as a family. At the old TARDIS she had always been just a passenger. This time she was on equal footing not only in piloting it, but in actually constructing and maintaining it. She glanced back towards John who also seemed lost in his own thoughts and was also running his hands absent-mindedly over the controls, but with far more sadness and insecurity etched on his face. It wasn't hard to guess what he must have been thinking, comparing himself to his fully-Time-Lord counterpart. Comparing their time machines, their biologies, their life spans. Her heart ached for him and she wished she could find the right words to get it through his thick skull that she wouldn't trade their life for anything anyone had to offer. But she knew that sometimes words were simply not enough to quell the monsters dripping poisonous thoughts inside his mind. It would take time and patience for him to recover from this just like it did the last time. Hell, it would take _her_ some time to recover from this. They would have a lot of talking to do once this was done, but for now all she could do was to squeeze his hand reassuringly and say: "It will be over soon, my love."

With a little bit of gentle persuasion and not-so-gentle jostling of the controls, the new TARDIS dematerialised and then re-materialised right beside the old one. In an almost childlike instance of monkey see, monkey do the little TARDIS changed her appearance. While it did not become a police box, its bark turned an unmistakable shade of blue.

"What the-?" Rose stood there with her mouth slightly agape.

"Wooow!" Donna exclaimed after she barrelled out the door. "She's blue! That is so cool! TARDIS Jr. is trying to be like TARDIS Sr.!"

"TARDIS Jr?" Rose couldn't help but crack a smile. "That actually sounds kind of cute..." John was not amused and turned away with a huff.

"Yes, the grumpy old man told me that our TARDIS came from a piece of this TARDIS so, that means that our TARDIS is this TARDIS' baby." Donna said matter-of-factly.

"I tried to explain to her that TARDIS reproduction-"

"Oh, never mind, let's just get on with it!" Rose cut through his grumbling and lead the way into...TARDIS sr.

The first thing she noticed was that Jack was sitting on the floor in the corner playing with colourful orbs of light that were levitating in front of him, making tinkling noises and flashing in some sort of ordered rhythm. She carefully reached out to his little mind and was glad to hear soft, calm music accompanying the tinkling. It was maybe not so strange for her child to feel so completely at ease in this old telepathic ship. Donna sidled over to Jack in what she obviously thought was a nonchalant manner, all the while acting as if she wasn't interested in the 'baby-toys' and instead pretending to be engrossed by the heavy tomes on the bookshelves while stealing curious sideways glances at the floating orbs out of the corner of her eye. Satisfied that her children were safe and comfortable, she turned her mind to the problem at hand.

"So... how do we go about connecting two TARDISES?" she mused out loud, hands on her hips.

"Well, the standard-issue-Time-Lord one will have an exit pod somewhere-"

"Are you insulting our time machine?" she narrowed her eyes at him.

"And besides, it's a load of codswallop. Our connection pod got cracked 500 years ago, that time the Sontarans chased us with their laser torpedoes." John retorted.

While his tone was light and his would-be casual posture might have fooled anyone else, Rose could see that his hands were clenched into fists inside his pockets. Maybe it would be better is she took charge for a while.

"Well... I know we have some alligator-clip cables somewhere..."

"What do you think this is, some rusty tin can of a human car with some primitive oversized battery?" the Doctor started to puff himself up like an angry rooster.

"Fine, let's check the TARDIS' storage then to see what spare parts we can scrounge up." Rose shut him down and started walking towards the stairs.

"I know for a fact that with what we have installed in TARDIS Jr.-"

"No, you're not going!" John's voice cut through her with unexpected sharpness.

Rose stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. "Excuse me?"

For a second John looked like he was regretting his choice of words, but his voice was firm when he continued. "We can probably work this out much faster."

"Oh please, don't start with that Time-Lords-do-it-better bullshit routine! I was only trying to spare you-"

"Spare me?!" John demanded, his voice cracking before the end. "So you think I'm too weak to handle him by myself?"

"Alright!" Clara said loudly and stepped between them before Rose could answer. Rose had completely forgotten that she was there. "Since those two decided to have their back-to-the-50s moment, how about we get some tea and snacks going for everyone, shall we?" She gave Rose a meaningful look. "The _children_ " she stressed the word particularly "must be getting hungry by now."

Rose's first reaction was indignation. But at second thought she had to acknowledge that the younger woman was right. Maybe this really wasn't the right time to push it. She pursed her lips and took in a deep breath through the nose before willing herself to adopt an, if not light then at least a neutral tone of voice. "Yes, you're right. Let's leave the men to their manly endeavours while we go and gab about curling irons and the bright prospect of time-saving household gadgets." She walked over to pick Jack off the floor. "And of course, we mustn't forget to make sure their slippers, pipes and sherry are ready and waiting when they're done," she added with a scathing look at the two men before leading the way up the stairs and down the hallway to where she hoped the kitchen still was, unless the TARDIS had rearranged its rooms after the last renovation. "Come along, Donna." She motioned for her daughter to take her free hand and she, Jack, Donna and Clara left the two Time Lords to each other's bad-tempered company.


	12. No Rowling in this Universe

POV: Donna

For some strange reason Mum didn't like Clara very much.

She led them all to a big kitchen, set Jack down in a baby chair and proceeded to make them all tea while Clara sat down at the table. Mama was perfectly polite, of course – but Donna knew better. Even if it hadn't been for the tense mental readings, it wouldn’t be hard to guess with her pursed lips. That usually meant trouble in the long run.

“So…” Clara spoke. Maybe she also felt Mama’s mood. “The Doctor told me your youngest doesn’t really like humans…”

That earned Clara thousands of points in Donna’s book – but it wasn’t the best choice to bring up Jack’s weirdness in front of Mum.

“He’s telepathic,” Mum answered somewhat tersely, setting the teacups down on the table with a little more force than would be polite. “We all are. He speaks well with the TARDIS he just hasn’t made the transition to verbal communication yet.”

“Because he’s lazy,” Donna finished, sitting at the table and letting her legs dangle back and forth. “I learned to speak very well.”

“And you haven’t stopped since.” Mum mussed Donna’s hair before pouring tea for everyone, in a slightly better mood.

“Every child is different, Donna,” Clara said, smiling as well. “I once babysat a little boy who didn’t say a word until he was almost three years old. His parents were taking him to all sorts of doctors and psychologists to check if there was something wrong, but one day he simply started speaking in full sentences, just like that.”

“So you’re a Nanny?” Mama asked while she poured some juice into a sippy-cup and handed it to Jack.

“I was – helped me pay my way through university. Now I’m an English teacher… Well, when I’m not off travelling through space and time.

“A teacher? Oh well, I thought you were younger…”

“To be quite honest, I don’t really know how old I am anymore… I should be in my mid-thirties if I kept up with linear Earth time, but now…

Mama laughed wistfully. “Oh, I know how that goes. When I was younger I spent some nights lying awake worrying I would look too old for my Earth age when I came back…”

Clara and Mum started talking in a different way. Leaning back in their chairs and laughing in the way Mum usually did when she was with her friends from work in London. They started talking about boring things like hair and water-proof make-up in space. Donna glided from her chair like a little eel and crawled under the table and out the other end. She walked around the colourful kitchen, peaking into the cabinets and drawers in search of something interesting but found only the usual boring kitchen stuff like pots, pans and cutlery. She realised she was standing close to the door. Throwing a covert glance over her shoulder to check that her mother was still distracted, she slowly sneaked towards it.

"Donna," Her mother's voice rang out when she was a step away from the threshold. "come back here. Don't  wander off. This is not our TARDIS."

"Exactly!" Donna said. "This is not _our_ TARDIS and if they're leaving I won't get another chance to explore! Daddy always said this TARDIS had _hundreds_ of rooms! I wanna see them, Mum!" Donna whined, but her Mum shook her head and Donna dragged her booted feet over the lino and plonked herself back into her chair.

"Oh darling, I know how you feel," Clara said ruffling her hair affectionately. "For the longest time it was my biggest dream to be able to see and explore Hogwarts and now I won't get to. So ...would you mind staying here and telling me all about it? It must be pretty exciting, right?"

"Yeah, it's ok I guess..." Donna shrugged and reached for a chocolate biscuit from the tray. "I actually prefer grandma's and grandpa's house in London. Only the big kids get to go to the castle and Mum won't let me explore the forest. She says it's too dangerous." She rolled her eyes as if that was a ridiculous and unfounded notion.

"Oh come on, Donna, it's not that bad." Mama said, looking at her in and indulgent way.

"Well... the centaurs are interesting and playing with the foals is fun and I once rode the Giant Squid in the lake, and the forest is full of interesting people and creatures. But the actual students are a bit dumb… Daddy says they don’t know the science behind magic…”

“So magic is science?” Clara asked, turning to look at Mum inquiringly.

“In a way." Mum said. "It’s a biological form of energy manipulation by genetic mutation caused by exposure to elements from the time vortex.”

“So time travel caused magic?”

“Our working theory is that there was a rift back in the Stone Age, and a part of the people were affected, generating what they call a wizard or witch. The trait settled into human DNA in a recessive fashion, and spread through the generations."

 “Oh, so muggles from other universes are still muggles. That’s a bit disappointing.” Clara sounded crestfallen. 

“Not quite” Mum pulled out her wand from her holster and placed it on the table top. Clara's eyes went wide as saucers and Donna could see her fingers working in her lap like they were itching to reach out for it.

"Anyone who has elements of time energy in their DNA has the potential. Time Lords, of course, have it, and I have been through some… _special circumstances_ that put some of the time vortex inside my system. Considering you’ve been travelling with the Doctor for so long, it’s not unlikely you've picked up something yourself…"

She picked up the wand and offered it to Clara whose eyes went, if possible, even wider. Clara hesitated for a second, her hand hovering a few inches from the hilt.

"It's not going to bite you, silly!" Donna said with a giggle, taking her mother's wand and sticking it into Clara's hand. Clara sat there stunned, staring at the wand in her hand. She let out a nervous giggle. "Well, this is embarrassing... I used to pride myself on knowing every single spell ever mentioned in the books and now I can't think of a single one!"

"How about you try something simple for a start." Mum suggested smiling.

"Yes! Try _Wingardium Leviosa_! You can try it on Jack." Donna suggested innocently.

The toddler who had up until then been engrossed in his new toys looked up in fear.

"Donna!" Her mother reprimanded.

"What?" She asked in an angelic voice.

"I think I'll try it on the biscuits." Clara said, turning her attention to the platter. Donna could see that her body was tense and that she was gripping the wand way too tightly. Knowing what effect that would probably have on the spell, Donna took the precaution of taking cover behind her mother's back.

" _WinGArdioum LeviOsa_ " Clara swished and flicked a little too exuberantly and the biscuit shot towards the ceiling where it exploded on impact, showering them all in crumbs.

"Oh my goodness! It worked!! It actually worked! I swung a wand and said a spell and magic happened!" She said it all in one breath.

Mama laughed at her unbridled joy. "You're a witch, Clara," She told the other woman and winked. Clara squealed, jumped out of her chair and did a funny sort of hopping dance.

Donna was confused. "I don't get it, Mum. She saw the castle and even went in. How could she not know she's a witch?"

Clara didn't seem to hear her. She was talking to herself rapidly in a high-pitched sort of voice. “Oh my God, this is really happening!! It’s just like the books!” Before Donna or her Mum had time to react, Clara sped around the table and pulled both of them into a hug. Donna took it in her stride, while her mother seemed a bit taken aback.

"But wait a minute…" Clara said, letting go of them. "Does this mean that the books are real? Just a coincidental description of another universe? What does J. K. Rowling do in this universe? Is she like a witch writing about an orphaned muggle boy sent to live with his wizarding relatives or something like that?"

“Oh, there is no Rowling in this universe.” Mum said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, that’s a very long story… And if our Doctors are working as fast as they should, we probably won’t have the time to tell all of it." 

This sobered Clara up again. She went back to her chair and sat down before heaving a sigh. “Oh I do wish we could stay longer, but with the situation being what it is...” She left the unfinished sentence hanging in the air.

Mum's face tightened the tiniest bit, but it didn't seem to be directed at Clara.

“I know my Doctor must seem to be acting very strange compared to what you’re probably used to, but he’s been through a lot and seeing the Time-Lord Doctor again is a bit difficult for him…” She said clasping her hands in her lap.

“Oh no, I understand completely," Clara assured her. "Because, let me tell you, _this_ regeneration of the Doctor finds a way to step on the toes of the entirety of any galaxy he walks into. Just now…”

Clara delved into a story about how the angry old man was mean and rude to people in different places, but Donna quickly found her attention wandering off again towards the unexplored frontiers of the TARDIS lying beyond the kitchen door. If Mum wouldn't let her go exploring she had to find another way to get out. "Mum," She started innocently. "can I go and bring Dad some tea?"

Her mother looked up and then looked at the clock on one of the walls. "You know what, that's actually a good idea Donna. It's late and none of us have had any lunch. Let me just fix something up real quick."

 She stood up and walked to the fridge, scanning the contents. She then waved her wand and tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, ham, mayonnaise and cucumbers flew out of the fridge and towards the workspace. Mum flicked her wand again and the knives hopped out of one of the drawers and started slicing the toppings along with a loaf of bread. Clara goggled at it all with her mouth slightly ajar while Donna plucked a couple of cucumber slices out of the air and munched on them. "There we go." Mum said, levitating the platter of sandwiches that had just made themselves onto the table and placing several of them on a separate platter along with two mugs of tea and a few biscuits. "Go along and bring this to your father and be careful not to trip and fall."

"But you set that platter for two! I'm not bringing sandwiches to the mean old man! He doesn't deserve them!"

Clara snorted into her mug.

"Now, Donna-" her mother said in what was probably supposed to be a stern voice, but Donna could see that a corner of her mouth was twitching.

"No, no, she's quite right," Clara spoke up. "Mean people do not deserve sandwiches." She said, winking at Donna, who grinned back. After another look from her mum, Donna picked up the tray and walked out of the kitchen. "Don't encourage her like that," she heard her mum say as she rounded the corner. "Last time she didn't like someone..." but lost the end of the sentence as she continued down the hall towards the control room and out of earshot.


	13. No Rowling in this Universe II

Rose IV

Clara was alright, Rose supposed.

If she was being perfectly honest and fair, Clara was more than just alright – she was an interesting person to talk to, smart and funny, and they seemed to have much more in common than she would have imagined.

_This version of the Doctor must like them on the smart side…_

Shaking the bitter thoughts away, Rose tried to focus her attention back on the story that Clara was telling, of when the Doctor wore bowties and looked incredibly young. There was a deep undertone of sadness in her voice, a strange sort of mourning that Rose knew so well – the emotional complications of regeneration that most humans would never dream of going through in their lives.

But there was more to this girl – _woman, Rose, come on, you’re not that far apart in age –_ than just roaming around time and space. She had a way of seeing through the Doctor that Rose really wish she’d had in her time. _Maybe I could even have avoided this whole meta-regeneration and alternate universe entirely…_

Jack smacked his lips as he gnawed the edge of the sippy cup with his teeth, and Rose suddenly felt very cold. Was her guard up? Had he heard her thoughts? _I shouldn’t even be thinking like this…_

Clara’s attention turned to Jack’s antics, and her underlying sadness only seemed to deepen  as she gently took the empty cup from the toddler’s outstretched hand.  _In the end, I can only imagine what she had to sacrifice to earn this insight…”_ Rose thought, watching her. Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Rose decided to try and change the gloomy atmosphere that had begun to creep around them.

“So, by your reaction, I take it you’re a big fan of Rowling…”

“Oh yes, I was eleven years old when the first book came out, so I’m of that generation that literally grew up with the story.” Her expression became animated once again. “It’s such a shame that you have no J. K. Rowling here, really. I would have loved to see what she would have done.”

“You really want to hear the story behind, it, don’t you?” Rose hid her smile behind her teacup. “It actually has to do with the whole reason we’re here.”

“Of course I want to hear it! And assuming our Doctors will be too busy bickering over the sandwiches to finish fixing the TARDIS, I guess we’ve earned ourselves some extra time…”

After a conspiratorial eye-roll, Rose began.

“When I was pregnant with Donna, we started looking for children’s books, trying to figure out if there were any familiar titles, or if I would have to remake all my references in bedtime stories…” She instinctively patted her stomach, a small smile on her face. “And we were quite disappointed to find out that there were no Harry Potter books in any bookstore, and that no one had ever even heard of one Joanne Rowling. We were initially sad and speculated about what she would be up to, if not writing… But to be honest, we had enough on our plates with our first Time-Lord/human hybrid pregnancy to give it too much thought.”

Jack started fussing and fiddling around with the straps of his high chair, so Rose stood up and took him into her lap. “It was only after this little troublemaker was born that it caught up with us again.”

“We were both working crazy hours, and at Torchwood even regular hours have their own kind of crazy. Jack was developing his telepathy and refusing to stay with my mum, Donna was having one of her most frustratingly rebellious phases, and after Jack almost got kidnapped to be crowned as the Emperor of an alien confederation – long story,” she added at Clara’s bug-eyed expression, “we thought we needed some normal, average family time away from all of that. We both took a month out off, and by then the little TARDIS was just strong enough for short-distance travels, so we picked this remote lake in Scotland with some ruin next to it on Skynet maps and entered the coordinates… But instead of a nice lake close to some picturesque medieval ruins, we found a fully functional and fully inhabited castle!”

“It was Hogwarts, wasn’t it?” Clara anticipated, amused.

“Of course it was. God forbid we have a quiet holiday at the lake!” Rose laughed along. “We landed smack in the middle of the Forbidden Forest, and found ourselves surrounded by centaurs before we could say ‘quidditch’”.

“Oh no! How did you escape them?”

“We didn’t really need to – they were quite friendly, actually,” Rose refilled their cups while she talked. “Turns out they were expecting us. They called us ‘children of time’, who were destined to plant the seeds of change that would save the magical world from its slow but inevitable demise. They were especially interested in the children – in fact, Donna still goes to play with their foals sometimes."

“And did you realise you were in the Harry Potter world right away, or did you think that there simply happened to be centaurs in this version of Earth?”

“It actually took seeing the castle for us to put the pieces together. And then, of course, we were super excited to find out as much as we could.”

“I can only imagine…” Clara sat back, balancing her teacup in her hand. “But how did it lead you to Rowling? Is she a professor at Hogwarts now, or something?”

“That was our first thought too. It would make sense, wouldn't it, for her not to be in any muggle records if she was a witch. But at first the thing we were excited about most was finding out that _we_ could do magic too, and suddenly having a whole new side of British society to explore that we hadn't known existed.”

They both jumped when a slight tremor ran through the ship, accompanied by a small wailing sound. Jack looked up from Rose’s lap, suddenly very alert, and she decided to speed up her tale, just in case.

“So, long story short, it was Hermione Granger, of all people, who was able to give us an answer to that.”

“Wait, you met Hermione Granger?” Clara’s star-struck expression brought a smile to Rose’s lips.

“Let’s just say that knowing that there were wizards and magic in a world that was almost destroyed by cybermen, because nobody had a means of fighting them, put this whimsical children’s story into perspective for us, so John and I started getting a bit political about how the wizarding community handled it all, or rather didn't handle it at all.”

“The Doctor and politics? Now that doesn’t sound right.”

“Well, once you can’t just hop into a time machine and disappear, you suddenly have to actually start caring about the world you’re dabbling in…”

A tense silence followed her declaration, and Clara cast her eyes downwards, feeling rather reprimanded and self-conscious.

“I’m sorry, that was a bit harsh, wasn’t it?” Rose winced apologetically and took a deep breath before continuing. “But to answer your question, yes, we met her in her position as a Ministry of Magic official, and John ended up asking her about Rowling on a whim. And she told us the most incredible story.”

“So there _is_ a Rowling in this universe?”

“There was,” Rose said, pausing for dramatic effect and somewhat savouring the way Clara was hanging onto her every word. “It turns out Joanne Rowling was a Hufflepuff who attended Hogwarts at the same time as the Marauders, more or less, and was one of the youngest members of the first Order of the Phoenix. She was a journalist, and their go-to contact in the press in the final years of Voldemort’s first rise to power.”

“So she was basically a story-teller in both worlds! Wait, if she was a journalist, does that mean she knew Rita Skeeter?”

“They both wrote for the _Daily Prophet_ and were bitter rivals. Skeeter was jealous of Joanne’s work and rapid progress in the paper, which was probably due to Rowling, unlike Skeeter, actually having professional integrity. Rita of course did everything she could to undermine and ruin her career. But then the Ministry did her dirty work for her when Voldemort returned. Joanne got fired from the _Prophet_ when she refused to bend to the Ministry’s pressure to spread wicked lies about Harry Potter and Dumbledore.”

“This is amazing! I mean, the original books were awesome, but this story takes it to a whole new, much more personal level!”

“But sadly, it didn’t end up so well for Joanne. After getting fired, she dedicated her life full time to the Order, taking on all sorts of risky missions until one day she disappeared in the Department of Mysteries, never to be seen or heard from again. This was only months before the Battle of Hogwarts…”

“That’s so sad… So she died there, just like Sirius?”

“See, this is where John and I have a theory.”

At that Clara leaned forward even  more eagerly.

"Remember that rift I mentioned earlier?"

Clara nodded empathically, looking a bit like a bobble-head figurine.

"Well, John and I suspect that it might just be in the stone archway in the Department of Mysteries."

Clara's jaw almost dropped onto the table. "Wait, so... are you saying... that-" She seemed to be struggling to wrap her mind around what she'd just heard. "Are you saying that Rowling went through the Veil, just like Sirius Black and... and..."

"Somehow crossed over into our world, yes."

"But does that mean that Sirius is alive and walking around in our London too?" Clara demanded, looking for all the world ready to go back there right now and search the streets for him.

"No, we're fairly sure he's dead. You see, he was hit by the killing curse before falling through so, even if he had crossed over to another dimension instead of the world of the dead, it wouldn't have changed anything."

"But..." Clara began again, "how, how does it work then... How come some people go to the world of the dead and others, like Rowling end up in other dimensions?"

"Well..." Rose began, trying to figure out how to boil down a long and complicated theory.

"The thing is, we would need to investigate and study the archway, do scans and whatnot. Unfortunately, bureaucracy is the same pain in the-" she stopped herself, looked down at the toddler in her lap before continuing "-neck no matter which universe you're in. Getting permission to enter the Department of Mysteries is more difficult than getting McGonagall to boogie in a miniskirt."

Clara burst out laughing at that mental image and needed a moment to get a grip on herself again.

"So, does that mean that everything in the books... Did it all actually happen?"

"Well, even if we assume that she wrote down everything when she crossed over to our universe, she would only have known everything that happened until just before the battle of Hogwarts. We already know there are some inconsistencies. For instance-"

But right at that moment the TARDIS let out a loud, whining groan and all the power shut down, wrapping them in complete darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and reviews are greatly appreciated!


	14. What happens when you leave your kid unsupervised in the company of two TARDISes

Donna pushed her little cart through the winding corridors of the TARDIS grinning from ear to ear. The tea cart was dark blue like the TARDIS and just big enough for her to push easily, so she could actually focus her attention on the blinking lights and strange doors all along the corridors. This TARDIS was fascinating to talk to! Somehow it felt similar to talking to their own ship, not in words but images, feelings, nudges... But the presence in the back of her mind felt... bigger... deeper somehow, like she understood some big secret that Donna couldn't even begin to grasp. It was almost like the difference between listening to a single instrument being played and listening to an entire orchestra playing a symphony. All the faint buzzing sounds in the back of her mind - she couldn't even attempt to keep up with all of them. But one thing Donna knew for sure, this TARDIS really seemed to like her. It was not only the beautiful tea trolley appearing right outside the kitchen door so she wouldn't have her hands full carrying the laden tray. She had just been musing to herself how awesome it would be to be able to see more of the ship, when she realised that the TARDIS had moved the kitchen far away, so Donna had a long walk to the engine room. She would have loved to make detours and explore all the different rooms, but unfortunately the TARDIS also seemed to like Mama a lot because the doors all remained locked. The closer she got to the control room the more she was able to feel her Daddy's sadness and some bursts of anger. Strangely, it was as if he was trying to use the anger to blow the sadness away. She picked up her pace thinking that maybe tea, sandwiches and chocolate biscuits would make him feel better. She jogged into the room and at first couldn't see anyone, but the familiar sound of tools clinking and falling to the ground drew her attention, guiding her to a control panel in a corner where her Dad crouched, his face smudged with some green goo. His scrunched up face immediately perked up when he saw her and he bowed out from under the panel cover to put his arms around her. Daddy held on to her a little bit tighter than was entirely comfortable, but it did seem to make his sadness go away a bit so she didn't mind.

 

"Oh, my darling! How lovely to see you! And you brought some biscuits! That's my clever girl!"

"Daddy, this ship is sooo amazing!" Donna gushed, handing him the plate of biscuits. "She talks in some melodies that are kind of Galliferyan, but not exactly and she makes all these cool things appear when I only think about them!"

"Yeah, she's beautiful, isn't she?" He asked, patting the wall beside the panel smiling in a strange way. Donna could feel the sadness getting stronger again. She was about to hug him again and ask him why he was sad, when she heard the grumpy man's voice calling from the other end of the room "Oi! Stop hogging all the biscuits!"

"They are _my_ biscuits and I brought them for Daddy!" Donna retorted stubbornly.

"No, this is my ship and therefore they are my biscuits!" the grumpy man retorted.

Daddy just took a biscuit from the plate, stuffed it into his mouth and shooting a challenging look at the grumpy man said: "Well, 'hen hom' an' ge' i'!" Which Donna thought was impressive seeing as his cheeks were bulging fit to burst with biscuits like a chipmunk's.

The grumpy man scoffed and said "You're acting like a child! Difficult to say which one of you is more immature."

"Hey! Everyone says I'm very mature for my age!" Donna shot back huffily, crossing her arms in front of her.

"Yeah, well you actually _are_ a child, but what's his excuse? If I'm not mistaking, he's 900 and something years old. No actually, come to think of it he's a child too!" He then turned to Daddy with a wicked smile and said: "I mean, what are you now, 12?"

Donna frowned at him. "Are you stupid? Daddy isn't 12!"

"Well, as a matter of fact he-"

"No!" Daddy's voice was sharp like she had never heard before and his emotions crashed against Donna's mind in waves that were so strong they almost hurt. Daddy and the grumpy old man looked at each other in that intense way that adults do when they're really upset.

"Come here then, kid. If you think my ship is so cool, you should come see the rotor, because, you see this is where we will find what's wrong."

"No, what we need to do is get into the telepathic conductors and recalibrate the probability generators so we can reroute the power..."

Donna started tuning out as she began understanding less and less of what the two of them were saying. She wandered around the control room, taking in everything. Descending some narrow stairs that led her to what appeared to be a storage room, full of shelves laden with the most interesting looking tools and gadgets. Of course, Donna knew better than to touch TARDIS tools she didn't understand. She had a really cool scar on her arm from a laser wrench she had once tried to play with, but at that time it had hurt a lot and she had learned her lesson. She snooped around the shelves and occasionally peeked into a box or two when she felt a strong nudge on her mind. The lights in the room began to blink in a strange pattern, almost like the little lights on a landing track that blink in a specific direction. Donna followed the blinking all the way to the back of the storage, where she found a dusty crate. She opened its lid and found inside a long coil of dark blue cables. She tried pulling them out but immediately realised that they were too long for that so she lifted the entire coil over her head and shoulder like a quiver and made her way back towards the door, waddling under the added weight and bulge. She couldn't wait to show her Dad what she had found.

She had just made it up the stairs and back into the control room when the singing in her head became... not louder, but more insistent. A latch, roughly the size of her hand, clicked and swung open in the floor at the base of the control panel only a few steps ahead of her. Walking over to it, Donna could see that one of the ends of the cable that was dangling just under her chin would fit into the slot perfectly. She knelt down awkwardly, trying not to overbalance and fall flat on her face, undid the first part of the coil and plugged it into the slot. The moment she did she heard the sound of the TARDIS door unlocking and opening and immediately knew what she was supposed to do. She slid the coil back over her head, careful not to trip over the cable that was now trailing behind her and walked towards the door. She looked back tentatively but her Daddy and the grumpy old man had their backs turned and were too busy bickering to notice anything going on around them.

She paused in her tracks wondering if she ought to let them know about the cable, but the voice of the TARDIS made it clear that she wanted Donna to do this on her own. So Donna shrugged and continued out the door. At least someone believed that she knew what she was doing. TARDIS Jr swung her doors open the moment Donna stepped out of TARDIS Sr almost as if she were welcoming the little girl with open arms. TARDIS Jr had begun to sing in that same insistent way as the old one and there was a sense of... excitement? No, more like anticipation in the singing now. Donna was barely past the threshold when she saw the latch opening on the same part of the control room floor as in the old ship and hurried towards it as fast as she could without stumbling. Just as she had expected the second slot matched the connector on the other end of the cable as perfectly as the first one. She paused for a moment, the connector in her hand hovering just above the slot, her heart beating fast with excitement, the songs of the TARDISes thrumming in her mind in a rhythmic chant. Donna took a deep breath, held it and lowered the connector into the slot. The two TARDISes let out a keening sound and everything shut down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers! We apologise for not updating in 2 weeks but we were a bit blindsided by worldly things such as obligations and some nasty bouts of flu. But now we are back on track for your reading pleasure! The plot thickens and from now on there will be considerably faster pacing and more action. If you like the story, please leave a kudo and comment below. Praises and constructive criticism is very much appreciated and desired :)
> 
> Cheers, Eruanna & Lily


	15. The best laid Schemes of Time Lords and Men often go awry...

POV: The Doctor

When they finally found out what that tiny ginger devil had done it was already too late. The connecting cables, or at least this is what he assumed they had been, were growing thicker and stronger with the artron energy flowing through them, making them grow and branch out like vines, climbing up the walls and ceiling and attaching their multitudes of little finger-like extensions to every panel and circuit in the coral walls.

The Doctor looked to the side and his eyes met those of his half-human counterpart. Despite his inferior physiology, not to mention mental stability, his meta-crisis seemed to be just as aware of the seriousness of it all as he was.

"But how did…?"

"Oh I don't know, it might just be because you can't control your own offspring!"

He didn't get any further because Rose, baby in arm, and Clara came stumbling into the control room, Clara's mobile phone LED lamp and Rose's wand tip lighting their way through the dark.

"Doctor? John? What happened?" Clara asked. Rose was looking around the room, pointing her wand light into every corner and alcove before she rounded on the two Time Lords. "Where is Donna?" she demanded.

John, whose attention had up until that moment been completely captivated by the cables that were running riot before their very eyes, jumped up in alarm, frantically looking this way and that.

_Urgh, that fool's got the attention span of a goldfish! Does it have to do with the human physiology or was this past regeneration really that annoyingly daft?_

"But she was just here..." John stammered, still turning on the spot like a human spinning top. "She was just... she went down... and then she..."

"Un-freaking-believable!" Rose fumed. "All this crazy shit happening and you don't find it necessary to keep an eye on-!"

What would have no doubt escalated into a full blown domestic was interrupted by the tiny drooling beast in Rose's arms, who started gurgling and shrieking and pointing his chubby fingers around the room insistently.

She automatically reacted to her son's unrest by stepping back and making comforting cooing sounds, but stopped almost instantly upon realising that the child wasn't upset at all. If anything, the little drool factory was happy... ecstatic even. His hands flew up to his mother's temples and his mind began broadcasting a loud, excited mantra of _Listen, listen, listen!_ not just into her mind but into every open telepathic channel it could find.

_Listen mummy, listen!_

Listen? The Doctor did and realised what the squirt meant. The humming of the TARDIS, ever-present in the back of his mind, had changed. In fact, it wasn't even a humming anymore, but had instead grown into a full-out song, the deep, velvety timbre of the TARDIS now accompanied in perfect harmony by a higher, younger, bell-like chirrup which, he realised with a start, belonged to the small TARDIS. The two voices chased each other almost playfully up and down a series of complicated scales as if attempting to see how high and low they could go together. They were talking, they were sharing, they were…"

"Erm, excuse me, sorry," Clara's voice brought the Doctor out of his thoughts, effectively returning his attention to the situation in the control room. "I obviously missed the pot of magic mushroom tea that clearly went around at some point, so can somebody tell me why everyone is staring into empty space with a derpy expression on their faces?"

Oh, the poor, limited human mind.

“I’m sorry you can’t hear it, Clara, but the TARDIS’ song… it's changed. You see, back in the age of the Time Lords, whenever their ships would meet one another, they would communicate, just like their pilots. They'd exchange navigation tips, update each other's databases on slang developments of a specific era, clothing, politics, technology… And now the little beast's gone and given them a direct mainframe-to-mainframe connection."

“So what are you saying, they’re talking to each other?”

“It's not just that.” The meta-crisis piped in. “Our TARDIS is really young, hardly more than a toddler, and it hasn’t had the hundreds of years of learning they usually do before they begin to fly, while this TARDIS is old, very old...” his face grew pale and anguished as the realisation of what was happening sunk in, and he started rubbing his face with his hands.

“Oh no no no…" he groaned through his fingers "If this is a learning bond it could take weeks, months even…”

“We need to cut it. Shut it down, right now!” The Doctor said and for once, all grudges forgotten, the two Time Lords jumped into action as one, pushing buttons, pulling levers, rerouting cables, typing complicated command sequences into the computer (and gaining nothing except a series of displeased and protesting whines from the TARDISes). They finally resorted to tugging and yanking at the connecting cable in a somewhat desperate hope of dislodging it, which resulted in an angry outburst from TARDIS Sr who sent a furious shower of sparks their way, along with a mild electric shock that had both Time Lords flying a foot into the air and landing on their backs.

"John!"

"Doctor!"

"Oh my God, are you two all right?" The two women rushed to their respective sides. The Doctor and the meta-crisis sat up groaning and cross-eyed, their hair standing on end. "Yeah, fine, love. I'm fine, don't worry," John reassured Rose as soon as he managed to focus his eyes on her. Jack scrunched up his little face and let out a string of babbles that sounded unmistakably like reprimands. "Oi, don't take that tone with me, young man, I am still your father and I have my reasons for doing this that you don't yet understand," John retorted in a defensive tone.

Just then the rapid patter of rubber-soled feet announced Donna's return. She burst in through the open double doors like a whirlwind, her jacket flapping, her hair flying behind her and her face flushed with obvious delight. "Can you hear them, can you hear them, can you hear them?!" she screamed euphorically. "The big TARDIS told me what to do and I did it all by myself!" she announced, looking very proud indeed. The Doctor and the meat-crisis groaned.

After it had become clear that there was simply no way of disconnecting the two TARDISes (not for the lack of further attempts), they gathered around the console room of TARDIS Jr (everybody having started calling it that now) to try and figure out what to do next. Whether they liked it or not, they were forced to face the facts: Clara and the Doctor were stuck here indefinitely until the two time machines had finished their learning bond and disconnected on their own. Neither the Doctor nor the meta-crisis were particularly happy about that, so it was to no one’s surprise that both of them protested vehemently when Rose announced that they might just as well make the best of it.

"What do you mean by _make the best of it_?" the meta-crisis had asked with what could only be described as an alarmed look at Rose.

"Well, you said yourself that this could take weeks or even months. We can't very well expect them to just sit around and twiddle their thumbs until then, now can we? They'll go mental with boredom! They might as well get the full experience and have a good time of it," Rose said in a matter-of-fact tone. Clara perked up, looking very hopeful.

“Don’t look too happy about it, Clara. I might waste all my remaining regenerations with death by drooling little urchins!” he pointed dramatically at his drooled-on coat sleeve.

"No, Rose. Please, no, no, no, no..." John rattled, gesticulating wildly with his hands.

"Why not?" her tone was conversational, but her eyes held a definite look of stubbornness when she turned them upon him.

"Why not? _Why not_? You seriously need to ask me that? Don't you remember what happens every single time _he_ and his plus-ones start poking around somewhere?"

Rose opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted by the little girl:

"Shit hits the fan?"

Clara choked, and even the Doctor paused the mournful wringing of his soiled coat to look at her, but her father didn’t bat an eyelash.

"Well... not my favourite choice of colourful words, dear. Maybe _it all goes to shit_ would be more accurate to..."

"John! Any more choice phrases you would like to teach our 5-year-old?" Rose shot a murderous look at her husband who gave her a sheepish grin. When it utterly failed to mollify her, he crumbled and almost visibly shrank a few inches under her withering stare.

"No, love... sorry. Won't happen again," he said, squirming in his boots – even though the barely concealed wink he sent in the child's direction rather spoiled the effect.

After yet another bout of _domestics_ (and this time on hybrid-Time-Lord-child rearing, of all things!), the Doctor had had enough. Since they were ultimately stuck there, he might as well stay in his own TARDIS and _make the best of it_ on his own terms: he could practise his guitar, read some Mercurian poetry, maybe even take the time to change some of the old circuitry and get rid of the annoying colourful wiring that he'd had to install some three hundred years ago...

“Well, at least _he_ can shut himself up in the TARDIS during that time and everybody will be happier for it,” the meta-crisis said, making the Doctor stop dead in his tracks. No, staying in the TARDIS was absolutely out of the question.

“Oh, what happened, _John_? Did your humanness make you so primitive that you don’t want me poking around _your territory?_ He rolled the R’s slowly, his accent emphasizing his scorn. “It is an unique opportunity to explore a different world, and I won’t be confined to my ship while you completely mess up this universe!”

His speech was rudely interrupted by a small (but surprisingly vicious) booted foot kicking him in the shin.

“OI, Dad’s not messing anything up, you old meany! YOU were the one messing our TARDIS up when you appeared, and YOU were the one who crashed YOUR OWN SHIP HERE, so you can go PISS OFF BACK TO NARNIA!”

Both Rose and John shot each other appalled looks, but for entirely different reasons.

“Oh my God, John, her cursing is getting completely out of control…!“

“You see, Rose, that is the danger of inaccurate metaphors, now she’ll think you were born in Narnia!” they both said at the same time, and went on arguing, while the Doctor started complaining loudly about not being obligated to listen to all this domestics. As Donna decided to add her own opinions about the “special colourful words for emotionally difficult moments”, baby Jack decided it was a good time to start babbling his little heart out, projecting frustration and crankiness to such a degree that the Doctor’s ears were starting to physically ring with it.

“Will you all just SHUT IT?!?” Clara’s voice startled everyone out of their rants. With a sheepish glance at the wide-eyed children before her, she softly added: “Please?”

After a few more false starts and a few threats of sleeping on the sofa (or getting his sonic glasses smashed, in the Doctor’s case), Rose, taking the uncharacteristic role of the even-tempered voice of reason, stood beside Clara in the cramped panel room of the little TARDIS and the two women started to outline a plan. To Clara’s unconcealed delight, they decided to integrate the two dimension travellers into the everyday life at Hogwarts for the duration of their "confinement" and slowly but surely came up with a fairly believable cover story. The meta-crisis would take them up to McGonagall's office and introduce them as his father (because this new, old Rose had a touch of cruelty in her), and cousin Clara Oswald. Of course, the meta-crisis was not a happy camper at hearing all of this, and looked forlornly at Rose before his face suddenly brightened.

“But what if they just use the perception filters? Can’t we at least avoid the wacky cover story?”

Rose shut him down straight away:

"And what if the TARDISes and therefore the filters just shut down at some point of the learning arc and everybody suddenly realises that there are two intruders in their midst? Do you think that will be easier to explain away and would make less of a hullaballoo?"

“Come, son, we are utterly defeated,” he said dramatically to the tiny hybrid, adjusting him in his arms and scrunching up his nose. “And besides, you need a diaper change, young man…”

He was about to pass the threshold of the living areas when Rose spoke up.

“Any objections to this, Doctor?” She was looking at the Doctor, of course, but the clone absent-mindedly turned around.

“Nope, I was just about to… oh…” His face scrunched up weirdly, and the Doctor supposed this is what being emotionally wounded would look like in his previous incarnation’s face. Stars and moons, it looked pathetic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and constructive criticism are always greatly appreciated!


	16. It's not what you know, but who you know...and how to get on their last nerve

POV John

McGonagall looked over the documents, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Department of Mysteries, you say?” John watched, fascinated, as McGonagall's lips, already a thin rigid line, became even thinner, to the point where they became almost indiscernible.

"And your name is Mr...."

"Smith, John Smith. And if you haven't heard of me so far, that's because that’s supposed to be a mystery, too,” the Doctor said, giving her what he obviously believed to be a winning smile.

Professor McGonagall was clearly not amused and it was very gratifying to see the stern look in those beady eyes turned on someone else for a change, John thought.

"Mr. Smith... You're Mr. Noble's father?"

"Yes, I never took his name, you see, because he abandoned me only a few hours after I was born." Yes, John thought to himself, Rose was absolutely right when she said that the best lies were the one's closest to the truth and he felt a surge of grim satisfaction at this exclamation.

The Doctor shot him a murderous sideways look, but his retort was cut short when McGonagall snapped the leather-bound psychic paper shut and placed it with the official Ministry document back on her desk, drawing their attention back to her.

"And you, Miss Oswald, want to take the opportunity to observe Hogwarts teaching methods for your own teaching profession?"

"Yes, ma'am, I'm a private teacher. I work with students whose parents prefer to have them home schooled," she answered evenly.

John observed her collected composure with no small amount of admiration, remembering how not 5 minutes ago she had been bouncing and squealing all over the place at the prospect of going up into the headmistress' office and meeting Professor Minerva McGonagall in person.

"I see, and do you have any particular subject that you wish to focus on?" McGonagall inquired.

"Well, seeing as I end up teaching the basics of all the subjects, it would be lovely if I could observe all of them," Clara said diplomatically. But then, almost as if she couldn't help herself, she burst out: "Can I just say that I am so happy to be here and to have this opportunity, through my cousin, and through you of course, to observe and learn from the famed and acclaimed Hogwarts staff!"

Professor McGonagall scrutinised her for a long moment over her square glasses before her thin-lipped mouth pulled up into a small, but unmistakable smile.

"Thank you, Miss Oswald, I hope you will find your experience here to be a pleasant and productive one. And you, Mr. Smith…"

"Doctor."

"Very well then, Doctor Smith... good luck with... whatever it is that you came here to do," she said, her previous smile now having reverted to her signature thin, rigid line.

John let out an inaudible breath and his shoulders sagged a bit with relief. _Well_ , the thought to himself, _this went surprisingly well. Definitely much better than the meeting with Hermione Granger the day before_.

 *Flashback*

John and Rose mostly treated their true identities on a need-to-know basis. Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Hermione Granger, was so far the only person who knew the whole story. And even she was a bit confused by this new situation.

"Ok, let me just see if I got this right," Hermione said. Her head was in her hands, elbows braced against her desktop, while her fingers massaged her temples. "This Doctor here," she indicated with a nod of her head, "is the fully-alien... entity, who accidentally created John…"

"Who is also the Doctor," John interrupted.

"Right," Hermione said, closing her yes for a moment. "And he left you here in the parallel universe, from which it was impossible for you to return to your own. So, he is _you,_ in a way, but he is also NOT you because he died twice since then and... changed faces?"

"Regenerated," the Doctor amended. "And it's not just the face, it's the entire body actually. So, luckily, our livers are completely different."

"Ok... I definitely did not need to know that. So now, three to five hundred years later, he comes back to Earth, but only ten years after he left, and is travelling with Clara, who is a human?"

"Yup, perfectly normal homo sapiens," Clara chimed in.

"Thank Merlin," Hermione breathed. "And you're travelling with him in a space ship that is also a time machine and it looks like a police telephone box."

"Yeah, but the phone doesn't work," John quipped, "because he's too lazy to fix it."

"Excuse me, I will have you know that the phone is in perfect working condition! Just because YOU were too lazy to fix it-"

"Irrelevant right now!" Rose hissed and gave both of them a sharp look, which effectively silenced them. "Sorry, Hermione, please, continue."

"Right... thanks. Ok, so, this time machine, which couldn't cross between universes anymore, managed to do exactly that because you stuck one of Joanne Rowling's books... somewhere?"

"It was the telepathic circuits and- ouch!" The Doctor yelped and started hopping on the spot. Clara had stomped on his foot.

"And now you're here again and so is your time machine," she turned to John and Rose "which is not a time machine yet…"

"Oh now, that's-" John started to interject but was silenced by a rather firmer-than-necessary squeeze of Rose's hand on his.

"…has somehow formed a connection, with your time machine," here she looked at the Doctor again, "which is the little time machine's mother... erm... parent? And the two of them are now singing to each other. The mother is teaching the baby... erm... the older one is teaching the younger one... and because of that you're stuck here until further notice."

There was a moment of silence broken by John. "Yeah, that just about sums it up," he smiled at her encouragingly. Hermione groaned and she looked just about ready to bang her head on the table.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione," Rose said. "I know this is a lot to take in, but it's not like we planned any of this and, like it or not, we are all pretty much stuck in this situation with not much wiggle room."

"All right, let's take care of the practicalities then," Hermione said, sitting upright again and restoring herself to her usual professional attitude. "Your suggestions for your background stories are good enough, I only have a few amendments. I'll write you up an official document for McGonagall and you will both need wands," she finished, turning to Clara and the Doctor.

"Not I," said the Doctor in what was unmistakably a smug voice. "I already have-"

"Oh, Merlin's pants, please don't tell me that you also have one of those confounded screwdriver things," Hermione groaned.

"Excuse you, they're sonic!" The Doctor and John cried out in indignation.


	17. Wandering through the Castle

POV: Clara 

Clara sighed for what seemed to be the umpteenth time that day. As incredibly fascinating as Hogwarts castle was and as much as it tickled her that she not only was here but, due to circumstances, would be staying for an extended period of time, thus being able to sample a really big taste of the life at the school, she had to admit to herself that she was starting to get slightly annoyed now. The sheer size of the place was enough to make navigating it challenging. The number of staircases, corridors, hallways, classrooms, towers, dungeons, cupboards, alcoves, nooks and crannies was enough to make your head spin. But when on top of all that you had to add MOVING staircases, mule-headed doors, secret shortcuts, trick stairs and a downright volatile poltergeist to your calculations, you really shouldn't be surprised to find a headache coming your way.

As soon as the wall behind them had closed and the stone gargoyle had hopped back into its place the Doctor had announced that he would be starting on the repairs of his TARDIS and stalked off without as much as a "by your leave". Professor Noble, realising with a start that he was late for his first class of the day, rattled down a rapid set of instructions on how to find the head girl's private study before rushing off with a swoosh of his robes and the squeaking of his all-stars, leaving Clara to her own devices.

And that was how she had found herself in this situation, meaning utterly lost in this big hunk of a castle. She had tried to follow Prof. Noble's directions to the head girl's study. The staircases, however, had had other ideas as to where she ought to be going. She almost felt like shouting one of Donna’s ‘colourful words’ when she turned a corner and found herself facing yet another dead end in the form of a window looking out upon the lake. She growled to herself in frustration, spun around on her heel with a huff and retraced her steps back to a way that would lead her anywhere close to the goings on in the school. Wherever she was right now, it was obviously some remote corner of the castle because all the hallways and corridors she had wandered for the last 15 minutes had been dusty and void of all human life. She was just coming up to a fork in the corridor when chatter and the sounds of movement reached her ears. Thinking how she had finally found someone to point her in the right direction, she hurried around the corner, only to come to a sudden, stuttering halt at the sight of the last creature she had wished to encounter. An ugly little man with neon-orange hair and an oversized bow-tie, who could surely be no other than Peeves the poltergeist, was hovering upside-down on the ceiling and was apparently occupied with a game of one-man frog-jumping. He froze mid-leap when he spotted Clara and stared at her.

"What do we have here?" he wondered out loud. "You're not none of them pesky little student beasties." He detached himself from the ceiling and turned the right way around. His beady eyes bored into her unblinkingly. It made the hairs at the back of Clara's neck stand on end and alarm bells start chiming in her head.

"And you 're not none of them teachers either," the poltergeist continued, slowly, menacingly, floating closer, not letting her out of his sight all the while. "Intruder..." he said and his eyes widened in an expression that was both gleeful and manic. "Sneaking around the castle, ey? Infiltrating and spying? Naughty, naughty!" he cackled at her wickedly. "Should teach you a lesson, really I should."

"Oh, no, Peeves really, you misunderstand..." Clara tried to explain but a part of her already knew that it was pointless to reason with the little creep. And she was right - Peeves floated down from the ceiling and wrenched an axe from a nearby armour's grip. Clara's eyes widened. He wouldn't dare! She started backing out of the corridor. "And you even know my name? What a handy little spy you are. Time to chase the nosy little ratty-rat back where it belongs!"

Before he had a chance to swing at her, Clara pivoted on the spot, bolted around the corner and down the deserted hallway, Peeves hot on her heels, cackling madly. She found a stairwell and dashed down it but just as she was halfway to the next floor she felt the ground give way under her foot and her leg was sucked up to the knee into what must have been one of those trick-stairs ( _Shit, probably the ones that Neville had always forgotten to skip…)_ and it was all she could do to not land flat on her back. Her arms flailed frantically through the air in a desperate attempt to keep her balance. She tried pulling her leg up but it only sank deeper into the magic trap. She looked back over her shoulder, still desperately tugging on her leg, just in time to see Peeves closing in on her. But then...

"Expelliarmus!"

The axe flew out of Peeves' hands , over his head, landing on the floor behind him with a resounding clatter. Clara's head whipped around again. A girl stood at the foot of the stairwell, wand raised. Before another second had passed and either Clara or Peeves had the time to realise what had just happened, the girl bellowed "Lingua Ligatum!" The poltergeist's tongue shot out of his mouth like a tape measure before coiling itself around and around its owner, from head to foot, finishing with a tight knot at the ankles. He choked, gagged, spluttered and howled in outrage but, apparently deciding it was wiser to flee, shot off back where he had come from. The girl lowered her wand and rushed up the stairs to Clara's side.

"Are you alright? Did he get you?" she asked in a worried voice, scanning the young woman in front of her for injuries.

"No, no, I'm fine. I didn't wait around to give him a chance, but if you hadn't been there..."

"Don't mention it. But I have to say, he is getting more psychopathic by the day. I have no idea why the headmistress doesn't kick him out already, he's becoming downright dangerous… Not that he always wasn't, but this is really getting out of hand. Here, let me help you." She stepped onto the stair behind Clara, putting her arms around her waist and pulling her up, effectively releasing Clara's leg out of the trap.

"Thank you," Clara gasped, flexing her knee this way and that, wincing.

"You're welcome. Did you pull it?" the girl inquired with a nod towards the joint.

"No, don't think so. Nothing hurts," Clara replied after she had stepped onto the leg again and seen that it bore her weight without complaint.

"That's good. Clara Oswald, am I correct?"

"Yes, how do you know that?" Clara asked, still confused by the whole scene.

The girl offered Clara her hand. "Eleanor Merryweather, Head Girl. McGonagall asked me to assist you for the duration of your visit. I was told you'd come and find me so, when you didn't, I got worried and decided to go and find you, make sure you didn't get into any trouble."

_Smart, wordy and a bit formal. Yes, typical Head Girl_ , Clara thought, starting to get her good mood back. _And may the first person experience of fangirling commence!_

"I got lost. Thank you for coming to look for me. I dare say you were just in time! What was that you did to him?" Clara inquired of Eleanor. The girl smiled wryly.

"Tongue-tying jinx," she said "my own invention. It's what I always envisioned when thinking of the phrase anyway so, after doing research and realising that there wasn't a spell yet that could do that, naturally I just had to create one. You see, the Latin roots were…" she was about to go on a full out rant ( _Does it count as nerdy if it’s about magic, or do you call it magic-y rant?),_ Clara briefly wondered _,_ but the very beginning of the young witch's sentence gave her pause.

"You... you invented your own spell?"

"Yes, two years ago.” With a start of self-awareness, the girl flushed a bit, looking down at her shoes. “Well, four years ago actually, but I only managed to really perfect it 2 years ago so I'm going with that."

It was only now that she was no longer in immediate danger from being decapitated or dismembered and with both of her feet planted solidly on the ground that Clara  really looked at her opposite. Eleanor was about her height, maybe an inch or two taller, with long, dark blonde wavy hair and dark blue eyes. Her black school robes were trimmed in blue, the same blue as the stripes on her tie, indicating that she belonged to Ravenclaw house. The silver and blue shield-shaped badge of her office was pinned to one of the lapels. There was something odd about her appearance, though Clara didn’t seem to be able to put her finger on it. Her way of speaking, as she had noticed, had a slightly different lilt, not enough as to be an accent. _She’s a Merryweather. Right. Did I hear this surname before? Maybe some slight mention in the books? Or is this Merry thing more Tolkien-like? Oh well, she doesn’t really look like any of the characters in the movies. Wait a minute, do the people in this universe actually match their characters in the movie? So are they all actors back in the Prime Universe? Do they…_

"Erm... everything alright?" Eleanor inquired somewhat awkwardly, interrupting her inner musings.

Clara realised that she had been staring blatantly at the poor girl all that time, but recovered quickly. "Yeah, yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to stare. I travelled quite a distance ( _You have no idea, girl),_ and am still getting used to the environment.” Sensing a question about her former whereabouts coming, Clara quickly diverted her attention. “So… inventing your own spell while still at school? Really impressive.”

Eleanor smiled at the floor bashfully but looked pleased none the less. "Thanks, but it's nothing really... not yet at least." She cleared her throat. _Factual Head Girl is back_ , thought Clara. "Anyway, it's almost lunchtime. How about we go down to the Great Hall? There's enough time for me to show you around a bit as we go."

"Sounds good to me," said Clara, "lead the way." Careful to skip over the trick-step this time, Clara and her new acquaintance made their way slowly downstairs, Eleanor pointing things out to her as they went, talking almost non-stop.

While she delighted in seeing for herself many places she had imagined while reading, as well as learning other facts that were completely new, Clara also observed the girl delivering them. Her somewhat stiff posture spoke of someone who wasn’t really comfortable around strangers, but her nerdy outbursts earlier hinted at some spark that would mercifully make her less boring. _Thank God I didn’t get a Percy Weasley-like Head Girl following me around. Maybe I can even have some fun messing with… oh well,_ helping _her navigate these awkward late teenage years…_

"If you take that corridor there on the right, it will lead you to a spiral staircase on top of which is the Ravenclaw common room. We don't have time to pop in right now, but I will take you to see it later. The Gryffindor common room is in the west tower on the other side of the castle. The Hufflepuffs are downstairs near the kitchens and the Slytherins are down in the dungeons and under the lake. It's a bit gloomy in winter time, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't look spectacular between April and June when the sunshine filters through the lake water and illuminates the place in all different shades of green and blue."

Clara did a double take. "Hang on, how do you know what the Slytherin common room looks like? I thought you were in Ravenclaw?" she asked perplexed, pointing at the blue on Eleanor's robes.

"Oh, I am."

"But then how...?"

"Things changed after the war," Eleanor said. "When Professor McGonagall became headmistress, she announced that the complete isolation of the respective houses had gone on for too long and that it was now obvious that the healthy competitiveness it had started out as had turned into animosity based on prejudice and stigmatisation.

So she declared that from now on, while the houses would still exist as before and the students would be sorted on their first evening, intermingling and familiarity in our spare time was to be encouraged. She said that students from other houses would from now on be allowed to visit their friends in their respective common rooms and introduced all sorts of new extracurricular groups and clubs that weren't house-restricted like the Quidditch teams. So now, when people want to see friends or family members who are in another house, they no longer have to make do with the library or wander around the corridors. They can just walk up to the entrance of the common room, tell the keeper of the entrance who they've come to see and the information is passed on to a portrait inside the common room, which announces the visitor and waits for the confirmation of the student awaiting the visit. And when that is given, the visitor is allowed entrance. It's quite simple really."

Clara was stunned. She remembered the scene just after the battle in the seventh book, where it had said that the sitting order and the house tables had been forgotten and everybody had sat together higgledy-piggledy. She had always taken it as an indication that this might be the beginning of change in the division of houses, but never would she have imagined that something like this would be possible. found that she liked it a lot – even though Eleanor cold have explained it in a slightly less elaborate way. _But oh well, who am I to complain? She’ll be a good source of information, at the very least._

"That's brilliant! Really!"

Eleanor smiled. "Yes, I quite agree. We didn't have separate houses back in Beauxbatons and we certainly didn't need them to encourage a healthy competition between the students. While we were each other's rivals there was never a doubt about us all being unified as well."

"You were in Beauxbatons?" _So this is why her pronunciation is slightly off. Maybe some sort of cultural exchange was also more encouraged after the war?_

"Oh, yes. I was born in Paris, you see. My father's British but he was working in Paris when he met my mother, and my brothers and I were all born there. My older brother finished Beauxbatons but we moved to England after my second year so, papa figured transferring to a local school would be the most practical thing to do. He didn't really fancy the idea of us essentially living in another country for a large part of the year. So now my younger brother and I are here," she finished.

Clara noted that she used the same detached tone to talk about her family history, and was about to ask why they had decided to move to England in the first place to see if she got any response, but she was interrupted by the bell announcing the end of the morning classes. The corridors immediately filled with students who were all swarming out of a myriad of classrooms all around them, and before she could say "Bob's your uncle" they were being swept towards the Great Hall by the constant stream of people. They entered the Great Hall through the wide double-winged oak doors and Clara felt her jaw dropping. It was even more magnificent than in the movies! Watching on screen didn't come even remotely close to actually standing there at the mouth of the enormous room! The high ceiling imitating the slightly overcast sky outside, the four long house tables and the teacher's table at the head of the hall and the large fireplace spanning a third of one of the walls. Eleanor giggled beside her. "You should see your face." Clara blinked and looked at her somewhat sheepishly, realising that she was experiencing a heavy-duty fangirl moment.

"I suppose it is rather impressive seeing it for the first time. We're all just sort of used to it by now," Eleanor mused out loud, letting her gaze roam over the hall as well. Clara's attention, however, was now on the four huge hourglasses suspended on the wall to her left just inside the hall beside the doorway. They were each filled with fist-sized emeralds, sapphires, rubies and embers respectively, indicating the current standing of the house points in the race for the Cup. Seeing as it was only the second week of term, the hourglasses were all but empty with the exception of the occasional handfuls of gems here or there. No doubt, this would soon change as classes continued.

"It's going to be a close one this year, I reckon," Eleanor commented, following Clara's eyes to the hour glasses. “Teddy and I are already warming up for a fierce long-term race. All four Quidditch teams are strong and there won't really be any changes in the teams' compositions since only the Gryffindor team had players who graduated last summer. Come on, let's sit down and eat," she finished and led Clara to the Ravenclaw table, furthest right from the door. They settled down somewhere halfway along its length. It was only when they were stepping over the bench and sitting down that Clara finally realised what was odd about Eleanor's appearance. "You're wearing trousers!" She exclaimed in surprise. It was true - instead of the usual black skirt that went with the white blouse and black robes as part of the girls' school uniform, Eleanor was sporting a pair of feminine, high-waist pair of uniform trousers with a blue sash. Eleanor raised her eyebrows in confusion and looked down herself. "Oh... erm... yeah, I am. I hate skirts, always have."

"I don't think I've seen any of the other girls wearing trousers though." Clara said, looking around with a slight frown. "Is that normal now?"

Eleanor pulled a face. "Not really. Back at Beauxbatons we wore dresses under our robes. I didn't mind those, but there's something about the sight of myself in a skirt that just makes me want to _crawl_ into the nearest mouse hole. So I went to McGonagall and asked if it would really make all that much of a difference if I wore trousers. After all, they are part of the uniform and none of the rules regarding the dress-code explicitly state that boys have to wear trousers and girls have to wear skirts. She wasn't too pleased about it, but said that if I absolutely insisted she had no grounds upon which to forbid it.” There was that warmth in her voice again, and Clara had to suppress a giggle, thinking of the time when school uniforms were a source of worry. Misinterpreting Clara’s small cough as offence, Eleanor quickly backtracked. “N-not that I have anything against skirts in general, and if people look good in them and feel good wearing them, like you for instance," she said, nodding towards Clara's skirt-and-sweater combo, "all the more power to you. I just don't like them on me is all..." she finished, turning her attention to the terrine in front of them containing steaming hot cream of mushroom soup and ladling it into a bowl that she then offered to Clara while still looking down at the table. "I think no one should ever be forced to wear clothes they feel uncomfortable in. And this look suits you very well. It really brings out your figure you know," she told Eleanor, softly.

The girl gave her a small smile. "Thank you. And I really do like your outfit."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as they started in on their food and for a few minutes neither felt the need to talk.

Meanwhile, Clara was having quite the interesting experience. While reading and watching the movies, she had always pictured being a student at Hogwarts, and how wonderful it would be to live in a world full of magic. She always thought that, if she ever landed herself in Hogwarts, she would feel completely overwhelmed and awed by the place and by how different those witches and wizard would lead their lives. Yet now, as a twenty-something-maybe-even-thirty-oh-gods-what-if-I’m-forty-and-haven’t-noticed-it (you could only travel for so long with the Doctor and still know your approximate age), and a teacher to boot, she felt a bit of caring affection, rather than admiration and awe, towards the young witch next to her. Of course, it did help that Clara was well-travelled and with a fair share of fantastic adventures under her belt, but behind all the spell-casting there was still that oh-so-young girl, still sheltered from the outside world. As a teacher, she had seen many girls like Eleanor, barely covering their teenage awkwardness with their bookish armour. _Would I see Hermione like that if I ever reread the books?_ She mused, as they started on their lamb chops and mash. _God, I’m getting old…_

 It wasn't until she was halfway through her plate that Clara's eyes wandered to the head table where the teachers sat.

"Where do you reckon Professor Noble is?" she inquired, having scanned the length of it without seeing him anywhere.

"Oh, he rarely eats here. I suppose he uses the meal times to pop in on his family and eat with them," Eleanor shrugged. “He brought his own, erm… mode of transportation to the edge of the forest and lives there with the wife and small children. Nobody really knows what it is, it changes shape now and then. He doesn’t talk much about what he did before, either, but they say he lives a kind of nomadic lifestyle with…” suddenly she stopped, blushing bright red. “But of course you know about that better than me, and might even live like that yourself, I’m so sorry…”

Clara waved a hand dismissively, smiling. “Don’t you worry about that. We are fully aware that we’re an odd bunch…”

Eleanor was about to ask her another question, and Clara was just starting to think of a diversion technique to avoid getting tangled up in her invented backstory when she almost chocked up on her mouthful of food: as she was gazing distractedly at Professor McGonagall, seated in the headmaster’s high-backed chair, a witch came jogging through the great hall, waving good-naturedly to her colleagues, and sat right beside the Headmistress. A witch with a shock of neon-purple hair.

"That... that woman on McGonagall's right... the one with the purple hair..." she spluttered.

"Oh, that's Professor Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, the Transfiguration teacher.” Thinking Clara had merely chocked on her food, Eleanor patted her on the back awkwardly, while she continued in her informational tone. “She's a metamorphmagus and loves to turn her hair the craziest of shades. She's really cool. They both are, honestly. Professor Remus Lupin, her husband, is the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher and he certainly knows his stuff," she said, nodding towards the man sitting on Professor Tonks' other side. And sure enough, Clara recognised the man with the greying mouse-brown hair and slightly drawn appearance as THE Remus Lupin - Marauder name Moony, werewolf, DaDA teacher, Order of the Phoenix member and quite obviously though shockingly, not dead just like his wife. What was going on here? The Lupins had died in the Battle of Hogwarts 17 years ago! How could they be here alive and well, sitting at the table, chatting away over their food?

"They were both members of the Order of the Phoenix back in the days of the Dark Lord's rise to power. They fought against the Deatheaters here in the Battle for Hogwarts. Nearly died too, but were saved by the march of the house elves. Don’t you know them? They are actually quite famous here…” Eleanor wondered, before her eyes widened again at her _faux-pas_. “Of course, with all your travelling, you might not know as much about…”

This time, Clara didn’t resist the urge to roll her eyes.

“Well _of course_ I know about the wizarding war. We’re travellers, not urchins. I just… didn’t match the faces with the names, is all.”

Nonetheless, Eleanor continued her explanation as if uninterrupted: “She was an auror back then but came here to teach after the war was over. I suppose she wanted a less precarious job now that she had a family and all... wanted to make sure she would be able to come home to them every night..."

Even through her shock-induced stupor Clara noticed the strange tone Eleanor's voice had taken on - something between wistful and bitter. But before Clara had time to open her mouth, Eleanor moved on.

"Anyway, she's head of Hufflepuff and Professor Lupin's head of Gryffindor," she said as if changing the subject.

"Then on the other side of McGonagall we have Professor Neville Longbottom, the Herbology teacher. He fought in the Battle for Hogwarts as well. He killed the snake Nagini, the last of the horcruxes, which made it possible for Harry Potter to kill the Dark Lord. He's really kind and encouraging. Doesn't give people a hard time if they're not gifted with plants as long as he sees that they make an effort none the less. Next to him is his wife, Hannah Abbot-Longbottom, our Nurse. She used to be the landlady at the Leaky Cauldron before applying for the post of matron here. She's cool too.”

“Cool?” Clara raised a single eyebrow. “All the teachers got their life story and connection to historical events told in detail, and you have no words for the school matron? What, did she give you a hard time when you fell ill?” Clara teased. “No, no, quite the contrary, one can come to her with everything and she won't judge you or tell on you. Well, during the war, I guess she…”

“Aha, so you have experience rather than impersonal facts to tell me. Come on, El,” Clara nudged her gently, hoping her teacher intuition was right and that the girl wouldn’t take offence at some mild teasing. “What terrible trouble did the nurse get you out of?” Clara waggled her eyebrows. Eleanor blushed brighter than ever at the woman's playful implications.

“W-well, she got me out of a really tight spot once in my third year after an experiment of mine blew up in my face. Let's just say I was doing something I wasn't supposed to." She looked sideways at Clara with a wry grin. "And I was mortified that she would go straight to my head of house and report me, but she didn't. Told me that she knew that students did all sorts of shenanigans behind teacher's backs, bending the rules and such, and that it was a normal part of being young and curious and that unless we did something that wilfully and seriously harmed ourselves or others, she didn't see a point in grinding us into the ground. So she fixed me right up, warned me to be more careful in the future and gave me a chocolate frog on the way out.”

_Back to the informational tone, I see._ Clara was about to press further when Eleanor mumbled to herself “Really maternal sort of woman..." Her voice held that strange tone again at those words and this time Clara's governess instincts piped up, recognising childhood issues. But Clara held her peace, feeling that whatever it was, this was not the time to discuss it. She looked back up at the head table instead and found something that peaked her interest.

"Say, Eleanor... who's next to Madam Longbottom?" But if she had expected that this question would help Eleanor back on a light-hearted track, she was mistaken.

"Oh, that's Professor Eino Kullervo, the Charms teacher and head of Ravenclaw." Eleanor said in a perfectly nonchalant voice that Clara wouldn't have thought about twice if it hadn't been for the fact that Eleanor seemed slightly more attentive of her plate than before.

"A strange name isn't it?" Clara commented looking at the person in question with even more interest than before.

"Not if you're Finnish," Eleanor replied matter-of-factly, though still inconspicuously avoiding to look up at the teacher's table.

Clara, however, all but outright stared. The Professor in question looked intriguing to say the least. The long, blonde hair that framed their face looked almost silk-like. They had an oval face, fair skin, full lips and eyes that were so blue, Clara could perceive the colour even at that distance. The jaw line and cheekbones were prominent and yet at the same time not. Professor Kullervo was definitely what one would call gorgeous. The only problem was Clara couldn't for the life of her decide whether Kullervo was a man or a woman. The name didn't help either. Thinking it would be slightly rude to just blurt out "What are they?" she opted for the more subtle approach of: "So, what's Kullervo's story?

"He's fairly new. Came to Hogwarts same year as I did," Eleanor said.

_He?_ Clara thought. _Ok, well that's that mystery solved._

"Heard that the job was opening because Professor Flitwick retired."

"Is he any good?"

That question had an almost magic effect. Eleanor's head whipped around so fast Clara wondered it didn't give her whiplash. She looked downright affronted by Clara's question if not scandalised. "Any good? McGonagall would hardly have hired him otherwise, now would she? He's one of the best Charms specialists there is! He's a member of the International Duelling Society and has been the Finish and World Duelling Champion three years in a row, first time while he was still at school! He is the patent holder for four spells of his own creation!" she said indignantly.

"Oh, so basically he's an older, male version of you," Clara jabbed, her eyebrows high up on her forehead. That exclamation again had an almost magic effect, this time in immediately putting a lid on Eleanor's sermon. Her face became stoic and her entire attitude could only have been described as humbled.

"I'm years away from being even half as good as he is," she mumbled demurely and returned her eyes to her plate.

_Ooookaaayy..._ Clara thought to herself. _That wasn't loaded at all. This definitely needs further investigating._ She carefully filed that thought away for a more private environment and a later time. She returned her attention to the rest of the table to get the intel on them as well. Eleanor volunteered names and backstories as light-heartedly as before and as if nothing had happened. Just as they were nearing the end of the line-up, three people entered the Great Hall, deep in conversation, making their way towards the head table. Clara nearly choked on her pumpkin juice and it was all she could do to keep herself from doing a spit-take when she saw them. She barely repressed her squeal of delight. Walking past her was none other than Rubeus Hagrid, one of her absolutely favourite characters, unmistakable due to his large physique and his bushy hair and beard. However it was the two people flanking him that had Clara really gaping. If _people_ was even the correct term.

"That's Professor Rubeus Hagrid, Care of Magical Creatures," Eleanor supplied readily. "And Professors Firenze and Nephilly, Divination and Astronomy," she finished, referring to the centaurs on each side of Hagrid. Both were strawberry blonde with cream-coloured coats on their horse-like bodies.

"Firenze still teaches? I thought he was welcomed back by his herd after the war?" Clara asked, not taking her eyes of the trio as they settled down at the table and momentarily forgetting that she wasn’t supposed to know quite as much.

Eleanor looked at her quizzically. "How do you know that?"

"Oh, erm... my uncle told me about it. A centaur teaching at a magic school... it was quite the thing back then," Clara lied quickly.

"Oh, I see. Yes, yes, he was welcomed back to the herd, but he seemed to have developed a liking for teaching and decided to stay at it all the same. And not only that, but his sister Nephilly also applied for a position after Professor Sinistra retired."

"It must be brilliant! Getting taught Astrology and Divination by centaurs, I mean. It's in their blood, so to speak. Who could be a bigger expert than them?"

"I never took Divination myself," Eleanor said. "Too much fishing in murky waters for my taste. I prefer to spend my time with more substantial things I can actually influence. Not that I'm being dismissive of it, it's merely not my cup of tea," she added quickly as if wanting to make it perfectly clear that she would never be disrespectful of a subject or a teacher. "As for Astronomy, yes the lessons are exemplary. You'd think the stars are alive and sentient the way she talks about them. It was very interesting, but again it's all a little too much up there for me. I prefer to keep my eyes pointed up front and focus on things that I can influence with my actions." She looked at her watch and said: "I have Advanced Charms after lunch and a free period after that. Professor McGonagall said you are welcome to sit in the classes to do your observations. Would you like to come along to class and then come up  to my study for a cup of tea? Or would you rather roam around on your own while I'm busy?"

"No! I'd love to come with you and be a fly on the wall!" Clara said her eyes gleaming with delight.

"All right then," Eleanor nodded and smiled. She got up and Clara followed suit. We have just enough time to pop into the kitchen and order the tea for later. Allons-y," Clara stood up smiling to herself, wondering whether Professor Noble still talked like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers! After a little Easter break we are back on track. We hope you enjoy the new chapter and if you do, please leave kudos and comments below. If there is something you didn't like leave a comment as well. Constructive criticism is always appreciated as it helps us grow as story tellers.
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Eruanna & Lily


	18. The Charms Master and the Dungeon Mistress

Eleanor  led the way out of the Great Hall, through the entrance hall, past the marble staircase and through a door to the right of it. They descended down a short flight of stairs into a warm, torch-lit corridor at whose end Clara could already see the large painting of a fruit bowl. She grinned and quickened her steps. "This is the entrance to the kitchens," Eleanor said turning to her. "You tickle the pear until it giggles and turns into a doorknob."

"Oh can I try, please?" Clara asked excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Eleanor chuckled. "Sure, go right ahead." She stepped away from the painting. Clara took her place, raised her hand to the large green pear and tickled it until it squirmed under her finger and let out a tiny, squeaky giggle before turning into a doorknob with a quiet ‘poof’ sound. She twisted it and the portrait-door opened to reveal an archway. The two women stepped through it. The kitchens looked exactly the way they were described in the books, down to the last brick in the stoves and gleaming copper pots hanging from the wall. Dozens of house elves bustled around carrying dirty and clean dishes to and fro. To her delight, Clara noticed that most of them were dressed in tiny white chef's uniforms and only a handful of them still wore the tea-towel togas. As soon as the two girls had stepped through the door a house elf had made a b-line for them.

"Good day young Misses!" it greeted them squeakily and bowed. "What can we do for you?"

Eleanor smiled and crouched down so she was eye-level with it. "Hello Marmaduke, how are you?" she inquired of the house elf. Marmaduke bowed again.

"Very well, Miss. Thank you for asking."

"Clara," Eleanor looked up at her companion, "allow me to introduce Marmaduke, the head of the Hogwarts house elves. Marmaduke, this is Clara Oswald. She is Professor Noble's cousin and will be staying with us for a few weeks," she finished turning back to the elf.

"Pleased to meet you!" Clara crouched down as well and stuck out her hand beaming. Marmaduke took it and bowed over it.

"Delighted to make you acquaintance, Miss Oswald," squeaked the elf. "If there is anything you need or wish during your stay, anything at all, do not hesitate to ask."

Seeing the house elves, Clara observed, was quite different from watching them in the movies. After all, there was no amount of CGI that could quite capture such a scene.

"Thank you very much! Can I just compliment you on the lunch? It was really delicious!"

Marmaduke beamed and bowed again so deeply the tips of his bat-like ears touched the tiled floor. "Thank you very much Miss! Praise is always appreciated. May I offer you a cup of tea?"

"Thank you very much, but we are on our way to class just now. However, could we ask you to be so kind to send a tea tray up to the head girl's study in about an hour?" Eleanor said.

"Absolutely Miss, it will be my pleasure!"

"Thank you." Eleanor smiled and got up. "We should get going now or we could be late," she said to Clara, who nodded.

"It was lovely to meet you, Marmaduke."

"A pleasure, Miss. I hope you enjoy your stay with us and don't forget - anything you need!" Marmaduke said with a final deep bow.

Clara thanked him. The two girls said their goodbyes and made their way back up.

"They're wearing clothes!" Clara burst out after the door had closed behind them and they had started walking along the corridor. "Are they all free?"

"Most of them, yes," Eleanor said with a nod and a smile.

"When did this happen?" Clara wanted to know.

"Fairly recently, actually. Six years ago... maybe less. I mean, I guess you could say that the first small changes started right after the war. The march of the house elves helped turn the tide of the Battle of Hogwarts and nobody could deny it. Though it wasn't for lack of trying," she said and pulled a face. "But the survivors of the battle were adamant and wouldn't let their importance be swept under the carpet. And Harry Potter made sure that everybody knew how his friend Dobby the house elf had saved him and his friends from the Deatheaters at Malfoy Manor. But it was only after Hermione Granger started working at the Ministry that some substantial things began to happen with elf rights... And well, magical creatures’ rights in general, to be perfectly frank. You'd expect that after everything that had happened... after the second reign of dark magic... that people would wake up and realise how insane this whole pure-blood rubbish and discrimination of... well everything basically that wasn't 100% witch or wizard, really was. But I guess old habits die hard. It took the new Ministry over ten years of hard work to push through new laws and standards for the proper treatment of our fellow magical creatures. Most of it thanks to Hermione Granger, of course."

She was interrupted by a voice calling her name when they were almost at the top of the marble stairs. They turned around to see a tall boy with fabulous auburn locks zigzagging his way through the clusters of students ascending the stairs heading for their afternoon classes.

"Wotcher, El!" he came to a halt in front of them. There was only one other person in the Harry-Potter-universe that Clara had ever known to use that form of greeting _. This must be Teddy Lupin_ , she thought to herself. And sure enough, the next second Eleanor opened her mouth and replied with: "Hey Teddy."

"Why weren't you in Transfiguration earlier?

"I got called up to McGonagall's office."

"What for? Was your summer homework too good to be legal?" he sniggered.

"Ha-ha," Eleanor retorted dryly. "No, I was asked to assist our new guest," she informed him and gestured towards Clara in an introductory manner. "Clara, allow me to introduce you to my friend Edward Lupin, our Head Boy. Teddy, this is Miss Clara Oswald, Professor Noble's cousin and she's here on a visit."

Teddy, who hadn't noticed Clara until Eleanor's introduction, looked at her in astonishment for a moment before offering up his hand and flashing her a charming smile. "How do you do, Miss Oswald? Lovely to have you."

Clara had to suppress a laugh. She could immediately see that Teddy was one of those boys who knew exactly how handsome and charming they were and put it to good use when needed. "It's great to be here," she answered, shaking his hand.

"How long will you be staying with us?" Teddy inquired as the trio made their way up to the Charms corridor.

"I don't know really. As long as it takes my uncle to finish his work, I guess. He's here doing research and he let me tag along for a family visit."

"Your uncle?" Teddy asked.

"Professor Noble's father," Eleanor supplied readily. "He's an Unspeakable from a foreign Ministry."

"Really? That's cool! Which one?"

"I'm afraid that too is top secret like everything else, sorry," Clara evaded with an apologetic smile.

"Right... it's cool, I get it. Sooo... McGonagall saddled you with this one as your guide, ey? Rotten luck! Has she bored your socks off yet with the unabridged history of everything?" Teddy teased, nudging Eleanor and winking at Clara as they walked. Eleanor gave him a dirty look. "Very funny, Teddy," she said curtly, blushing slightly.

“Oooh right and proper Head Girl, she seems, but I can tell you, Miss Oswald, if you weren’t here to make her behave I bet she’d be threatening to hex me to next week and back,” Teddy chuckled and tugged at Eleanor's robes, pulling her into an awkward one-armed hug as they walked. “But seriously, though, she’s really nice once you get her out of her constant lecture mode.” He tried to ruffle Eleanor's hair, but got a swift kick in the shin as a response.

"I'll thank you not to undermine me and make me a laughing stock in front of complete strangers," she hissed back at him in disgruntlement.

Clara grinned as she watched them. They were obviously really close friends and she was glad to know that there was someone in Eleanor's everyday life who apparently knew how to nudge her out of her shell.

The two of them continued in that fashion all the way to the Charms classroom. Some of their fellow students were already sitting inside. Eleanor lead the way to a table in one of the back rows. They sat down and El and Teddy started taking out books, quills, ink and parchment while the rest of the students filed in. As she looked around the classroom, Clara noticed that a large part of the students were girls and in fact that all of them had taken up seats in the front rows while the boys had settled down around her and her two companions. She turned to Teddy and was about to voice this observation to him when she heard the classroom door close and a very deep, heavily accented voice saying: "Settle down now..." She turned around and watched Professor Kullervo walking to his desk. _Ok, he's undoubtedly a bloke!_ Clara thought to herself. He was tall, as in really tall, 6'2'' possibly even 3'', broad-shouldered and his voice was so deep and resounding that it carried across the entire room when he spoke without him having to raise it above a conversational volume. "Settle down, I said," he repeated calmly after he had unlocked his desk drawer with a flick of his wand and had  begun pulling out parchments that presumably held his notes and curriculum. For not only had the students not quieted down after the first time he had said it, but the amount of noise actually increased when, while bent over the drawer, Professor Kullervo brushed the long curtain of blonde hair behind his ear, that was ever so slightly but undoubtedly pointy, revealing a heavy silver earring dangling from it. It must have been a fairly new acquisition, because the girls in the front rows started nudging each other, putting their heads together and whispering and giggling girlishly. _Oh dear,_ Clara thought to herself and rolled her eyes _this whole class seems to have a bad case of hots for the teacher._ But Professor Kullervo seemed either not to notice or not to care. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and surveyed them with a stoic expression until they quieted down.

"Good day everyone," he said in his heavy Finnish accent that made his voice seem even deeper. "Considering the general poor quality of the essays I had the displeasure to grade for this class, I feel the need to remind you that this is your last year and all of you who are here will be taking your N.E.W.T.s in June. The results you get will very much determine the jobs and/or further studies you will be able to apply for and therefore your future lives, so I advise you to take this subject very seriously this year. I will do my best to prepare you but I tell you now, it's going to be hard work and if you don't keep up, I can assure you that you will not be able to handle what's coming in your N.E.W.T.s. I am saying this because many of you don't seem to realise the seriousness of the situation. I asked you to write an elaborate essay on the properties of the Protean charm. Some of you didn't submit anything while the attempts of most of those who did were half-hearted at best. I graded them according to N.E.W.T. standards and there were only two Os, no Es and only four As. Those of you who were planning on submitting today - don't bother. I warned you I wouldn't accept latecomers."

He pulled up a stack of parchments, handing them to the nearest student to pass them around. Eleanor and Teddy got handed their essays and Clara wasn't at all surprised to see that the two Os had been theirs. Teddy looked at his with an expression of peaceful satisfaction, flying over the comments on the margins before putting it away. Eleanor, on the other hand, started perusing the three feet of parchment as if it held the secrets to the universe hidden in the margins, but when she noticed Clara looking at her out of the corner of her eye, her back went ramrod straight and her face immediately took on the expression of slightly lofty indifference and she rolled up her essay, putting it aside.

"If this had been your exam, more than two thirds of this class would have failed. Let that sink in. You will need Charms in almost every future occupation you will find yourself in, I can promise you that, and you will be very sorry later if you don't put your back into it now. I've warned you."

With an abrupt turn to the blackboard, he started his lesson of the day, drawing some complicated diagrams that Clara didn’t even bother to follow after a few minutes of befuddlement. Instead, she turned to watch the students as they reacted to the theoretical part of their class. While El sat at attention with her back straight, hastily writing down every word the professor was saying, Teddy was reclining in his chair, and only occasionally picking up his quill to write something down. Most of the class seemed pretty attentive – this _was_ an advanced subject, after all – but there were some among the group of girls in the front who seemed much more  preoccupied with the way Professor Kullervo’s hair flowed behind him as he paced than on the content of his lecture.

"Is there a sedative in the house?" Eleanor hissed to Teddy, who snorted and sniggered into his fist. She was referring to two Gryffindor girls, two rows in front of them, who had been whispering and giggling amongst themselves on and off during the entirety of Professor Kullervo's speech, who had in turn ignored them stoically. Eleanor, however, had surveyed them with a continuous withering stare. Even though she had spoken so silently that only Clara and Teddy could have heard her, Clara was almost sure she saw Kullervo's eyes flicker towards the three of them and the corner of his mouth give a tiny twitch.

"Any questions? None? Very well, let's get to work then. Wands out."

The rest of the class passed with a review of non-verbal spells, with a special attention to intensity and directionality of ranged-area spells, which was a quite fascinating exercise to watch, with streams of coloured light beams soon filling up the whole classroom. The bell rang, Professor Kullervo asked them to read the second chapter in their textbook as well as an additional title and to practice their non-verbals, threatening detention to anyone who failed to do their work a second time in a row, before he let them go and the students filed out into the corridor.

"I've got Divination now, what about you?" Teddy asked turning towards Eleanor and Clara.

"Free period for me. We were actually planning to have a cup of tea in my study but," and here Eleanor turned to Clara, "if you would perhaps prefer to accompany Teddy?" Clara hesitated for a moment. She was very curious about witnessing a class being taught by a centaur, but there were things she wanted to pick Eleanor's brain about and the little tea-party gave her the perfect opportunity. She could always go to Divination some other day and she told them as much.

"Ok then, see you later in Potions! Cheers, ladies!" said Teddy and walked off.

Eleanor lead the way up to the fifth floor, past the statue of a man with his gloves on backwards, whom Clara recognised as Boris the Bewildered, and halted before a handsome, polished oak door left from the painting of an austere-looking circle of wizards in black cloaks sitting around a discoloured scull in the middle of a round table.

"Pennywhistle," she said to the door, which swung open after a silent click of the lock. Eleanor walked in but Clara stopped just inside the threshold, looking around. They had entered a cosy-looking parlour with a fireplace and two comfy overstuffed armchairs in front of it. On the wall either side of it hung the tapestries of the eagle on blue and the badger on yellow. A couch was positioned against the opposite wall, with two bookshelves reaching from floor to ceiling on each side. Facing Clara was a large window that looked out over the grounds. There were two more doors, she noticed, one on the left next to one of the bookshelves and the other on the right, beside the Hufflepuff tapestry.

"Make yourself at home," Eleanor said as she dropped her bag onto the couch, pulling Clara out of her musings. She closed the door behind her and walked into the middle of the room. "So this is the head students' parlour. Has it always been a part of the deal?"

"Yes, in a way. You see, back in the days of the four founders, their relatives, Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter Helena, for example, had the privilege of their own private chambers. And the idea sort of developed from there I suppose."

"I think I'm beginning to get the appeal of the whole prefect and head-student thing. Your own bathroom, your own study... well, you still share with Teddy but I suppose that's still a great improvement from having to put up with your entire house in the common room."

"Oh it is," Eleanor agreed wholeheartedly. "And Teddy and I only share the parlour. The studies are entirely our own. Here, take a look if you want," she beckoned to Clara as she opened the door next to the book case. Like the parlour, the study was spacious and comfortable-looking. There was a fireplace, though smaller, and flames were already crackling merrily inside the grate. A very cosy-looking chaise-longue stood in front. A long desk stood at the window, though Clara couldn't see that Eleanor particularly benefited from the position. Stacks upon stacks of books and parchment rolls rose neatly all around the three edges of the desk, nearly obscuring the view and practically walling in anyone sitting at it. There was a wardrobe and a bow-fronted chest of drawers on top of which stood an empty bird cage, a violin case and a collection of picture frames. Now, _those_ sparked Clara's interest. She itched to take a closer look at them, but before she had time to take the first step towards the dresser Eleanor's voice called her back.

"Tea's ready! Marmaduke even sent up a plate of éclairs, bless him. Come and sit." Clara turned away from the chest somewhat reluctantly and returned to the parlour. The tea-tray had been placed on a small round table between the two chairs at the fireplace.

"I'll be mother, shall I?" Eleanor said when Clara seated herself beside her. She accepted her cup from the young witch and the two relaxed into the cushions, sipping on their tea and nibbling on the sweets the house elves had been so kind as to provide.

"So, how did you like Charms?" Eleanor inquired after a few moments of comfortable silence.

"Oh, I thought it was very interesting. Professor Kullervo seems to be a good teacher. Demanding and rather strict but fair." _Reminds me a bit of McGonagall, really,_ she thought to herself. Then, with a side-glance at Eleanor over the brim of her cup, she added in a nonchalant voice: "He also appears to be rather popular with the female students, doesn't he?"

Eleanor had just bitten into an éclair but at those words she made a face as if the filling had turned out to be bubotuber puss. Clara hid her grin behind her teacup.

"Yes well... apparently some people think that being teenagers gives them licence to not only discard all dignity and self-respect, but to also reduce others to skin-deep qualities with complete disregard for those people's talent and years of hard work," she said sniffily, taking an angry sip from her cup as if attempting to wash down the unpleasant taste the topic left in her mouth.

"You obviously think very highly of him," Clara probed on.

"He is my head of house and my mentor," Eleanor said as if that settled things. "Last year he helped me get an article published in _Challenges in Charming._ "

"You published an article in an academic magazine?" Clara asked. She remembered the name from the books. Dumbledore himself had written papers for it and _Transfiguration Today_.

Her tone caused the cheeks of the young witch to go pink again. "Erm… well… yes." She stared down into her tea awkwardly.

"What was it about? Your tongue-tying jinx?"

"Oh no, that's just a silly thing I did for my own fun. No I... I wrote on the different types of long-distance communication charms or rather the lack thereof. While owls and flu powder are all well and good, they both have their considerable limitations when it comes to speed and accessibility. And very few people are capable of producing a proper corporeal patronus, let alone make it speak. And with the muggles' telephones, Wi-Fi and other communication methods in mind, it seems almost shameful just how limited our own options are."

"So let me guess, you invented one?" Clara asked half-incredulous, half-amused.

"No, no... I took up an old one and attempted to modify it to, in a way, widen its possibilities."

"I assume you were successful, seeing as you got published?"

"I got to the desired result, yes," Eleanor mumbled still blushing.

A thought crossed Clara's mind and, very curious as to the reaction it would provoke, voiced it. "Wow... you must have spent a lot of time in Kullervo's office then. Putting your heads together over your research, bouncing ideas off each other. You probably spent hours talking about all sorts of things." Her tone was pure innocence.

The éclair stopped halfway to Eleanor's mouth and then got lowered to its plate again while the girl eyed Clara from under raised eyebrows. "We talked about the subject matter at hand," she finally said in her detached factual tone.

"Yeah, but the whole point of mentoring is not just in talking about the subject matter, now is it? I mean, I try to offer my students something from my own experience... you must have at least brushed the topic of his own Hogwarts days. He was here same time as Harry Potter and the DA, right?"

"No, he was not. He was never a Hogwarts student. I told you, he's Finnish. He graduated from Durmstrang," Eleanor corrected her abruptly. Clara suspected that correcting incorrect information must have become an almost unsurpassable instinct over the years.

"Oh! He used to go to Durmstrang?"

"Yes, and I used to go to Beauxbatons, so what?" Eleanor retorted in a rather defensive tone as if Clara's question had been an accusation of something.

"N-Nothing... I didn't mean anything by it. I was just surprised," Clara assured her. _Hmm... looks like Durmstrang still hasn't shaken off its bad reputation._ She mused. Thinking it better to perhaps change the subject for a while, she inquired. "So... you mentioned telephones and Wi-Fi earlier. Did you learn about them in Professor Noble's class?"

"No," her tone was still somewhat wary. "I learned about them at home. I am a half-blood. My father is a Muggle. He is a cellist in the London Symphonic Orchestra." A distinct undertone of pride swung in her voice at the mention of her father. But before Clara could probe on, Eleanor continued. "Professor Noble only started this term. As far as I gathered, however, his syllabus will include basic Muggle science among other topics."

"Really? He only just started?" Clara asked in surprise.

"That's right. Though, he's been around for longer. Teddy told me he and his wife have been hanging out with the DA and the Order for a couple of years now... I believe it was the entire new concept of Muggle studies that was pending approval. Apparently the school governors weren't too keen on it for some reason. They said it was too 'ideologically loaded' or so Teddy told me.

"Ideologically loaded?" Clara repeated, her eyebrows climbing into her hairline.

"Their words, not mine. Frankly, I don't really understand what they're playing at. Remus, Professor Lupin I mean, said that it's a sore spot because of what went on during the reign of... erm..." She paused and looked at her opposite with uncertainty before she inquired diplomatically "How sensitive are you to hearing the name?"

"What, Voldemort? Oh, I have no problem with hearing or saying it, don't worry."

"Right, I thought you mightn't seeing as the Nobles say it too, but I thought it better to ask. Many people still can't find it in them to shake the fear... not surprising really. Anyway, as I was saying, Professor Lupin believes that it's because of what Muggle Studies looked like during Voldemort's reign. The Deatheaters had made it into a compulsory subject too and taught the students how Muggles were filthy animals and other such disgusting things. So I guess that the proposal to make it mandatory again woke some sleeping dragons in people's minds."

"And what do the students think about it?" Clara wanted to know.

"Well... it's difficult to say for sure, seeing as it is only the first week but I believe that the feelings are mixed among the students as well. Most of the Muggle-borns just roll with it. The people from wizarding families are mostly curious, as far as I can tell. Of course, there are those who protest, complaining that they don't see the point in learning about Muggle history and life, saying that it's a waste of time."

"And what do you think?"

The young witch didn't answer straight away. She gazed into the fire without really seeing it. Then after a moment she spoke with conviction. "I think Professor Noble is right. No society can hope to progress if it isolates itself from its surroundings. The thus resulting stagnation is bound to turn into deterioration sooner or later and... well, if Voldemort's reign wasn't  two steps back into the dark ages, what was it then? And he wasn't even the first. Grindelwald's ideology was more-or-less the same only a generation earlier... How long until ignorance and prejudice spawn a third nutter? If nothing else, the abundance of similar examples in Muggle history should act as an extra warning, shouldn't it?" There was a real question in her voice and Clara thought she could see a flicker of something that could have been a plea in the girl's eyes when she lifted them back to her.

Clara wasn't sure how to answer. If travelling with the Doctor had taught her anything, it was that human kind (and not just them) had the nasty habit of repeating past mistakes and refusing to learn from history. On the other hand, she didn't see any good coming from destroying hope where it blossomed in a young heart so she said: "Yes... yes, it might."

Eleanor seemed content with the answer and fell silent for a few moments again before asking: "What did Muggle Studies look like at your school?"

Clara had expected it would come to a question like that eventually and had the answer ready. "Oh, I never went. It's a bit difficult to incorporate when you travel around all the time."

Eleanor blushed slightly again. "Yes, of course. I apologise, how mindless of me. I should have thought of it." But Clara waved her off with an easy smile. "So, you were home-schooled throughout then?" The girl went on.

"Yeah... and of course travelling itself does the trick. There's no class in the world that competes with hands-on experience. I've learned things on our journeys that I never would have learned at school."

"Like what?" the question practically burst out of  Eleanor. There was that spark in her eyes again that Clara had noticed the moment she'd met her and there was barely disguised eagerness in the way she leant towards her.

_Oh, hell yeah, there's definitely a temper hiding in there behind all that bookish propriety._ Clara thought to herself, mentally rubbing her hands together with glee. _Like what? Well, let's see - like the fact that there actually is a Santa Clause and there really was a Robin Hood and that he was almost better at annoying the Doctor than he was at shooting arrows, that there is an entire race of lizard-people snoozing away under the Earth's crust..._

"Oh, loads of things..." she said vaguely. "history, geography, people skills... mainly that where, when and what one is born as doesn't make us different from each other... and that in the long run the things we do matter far more than the things we say."

"It's strange, isn't it... that people need to learn these things first," Eleanor mused more to herself than to Clara. Then, shaking her head as if to rid herself of a pesky fly, she asked: "You seem fairly familiar with Muggle technology yourself - did you spend time among them as well?"

"Oh yeah, we frequently spend time with all sorts of Muggles. You could say that I'm as much at home in their world as I am in the wizarding world."

"That's fantastic! Not many wizards can say that for themselves... and I'm afraid many still wouldn't want to either... It would be wonderful if Professor Noble's new program could change that," she finished almost as an afterthought.

"So what about you?" Clara wanted to know.

"Begging your pardon?"

"Well, you said your dad's a Muggle and that you're a half-blood, so your mum must be a witch. How did the two worlds mix for you when you were little?" Her tone was light and conversational, but she didn't fail to notice that the young witch's posture stiffened again and her face took on a controlled neutral look. Eleanor was spared an answer, however, when the clock on the mantelpiece chimed a quarter to three. "Oh, is that the time already?" Eleanor practically jumped up from her seat. "We should get going. It's a bit of a walk back down to the dungeons."

Clara was slightly startled by the abruptness with which Eleanor had ended the conversation. It only served to solidify her earlier suspicions that all may not be as perfect and ordered in the head girl's life as she made it look on the outside.

"Oh, erm... yeah, sure." She set her teacup down and rose in turn. Eleanor went to retrieve her cauldron and ingredients kit from the study and they started their way down. Clara, who'd gotten used to the head girl's almost constant lecturing chatter, found the silence that had engulfed them somewhat awkward and tense and kept throwing curious sideway glances at her. When they reached the main stairwell with the moving staircases, they found that the one they needed was currently leading to a corridor a floor above theirs on the opposite wall and that a railing had slid into place in front of them, keeping them from a 50 foot drop. Clara had always wondered how the inhabitants of Hogwarts handled these situations. _I mean, what do you do when you can't move in the direction you need to? Do you have to go look for a different way out every single time? How does anyone manage not to be late for everything?_

"What do we do now? Do we have to go around?" She asked in confusion, breaking the silence.

"Not necessarily. " Eleanor answered calmly, finally speaking for the first time since they left the parlour. She then gave a sharp whistle that echoed from the stone walls and addressing, as Clara assumed, the staircases said "Down to the entrance hall, if you please." And to Clara's astonishment, a staircase that ran along the left-hand wall parallel to them detached itself from said wall, turned in their direction and merged seamlessly with the brink in front of them. The railing slid back into the wall, giving them access to the stairs. And with the air of a person who had done nothing more extraordinary than hail a cab, Eleanor continued on her way down the stairs. Clara followed close behind, afraid the staircase could change its mind again and leave her stranded. "So all you have to do is ask them to change directions? And they listen?"

"Well, it does depend. They usually listen when you ask them politely. Though of course they are rather mischievous in their own way so, they're less likely to do the bidding of younger students. They particularly like teasing the first-years and sending them off in the wildest of directions. But the people in the paintings usually keep them in line, making sure they don't overdo it."

"That's good to know," Clara looked up at said paintings lining the walls of the cavernous stairwell. She'd had to pull herself together something serious when walking through the castle with Eleanor earlier and not stare at the moving occupants with too much awe and glee. It would have been a bit of a giveaway. But now she had the perfect excuse to let her eyes roam over them freely.

"Lady Deidre is particularly good with them," Eleanor said, stopping two thirds down the stair and indicating towards the portrait of a young woman in a white dress with a wreath of flowers on her head, holding a bouquet. She looked down at them, smiled and curtseyed. "Lady Deidre," Eleanor addressed the portrait. "This is Clara Oswald, she's Professor Noble's cousin and a guest here."

Lady Deidre inclined her head towards Clara. "How do you do, Miss Oswald."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my Lady," Clara greeted back smiling widely. _I'm having small talk with a Hogwarts painting. I would like to take this moment to say: Squee!_

"Could I perhaps ask your Ladyship to be of assistance to our guest and make sure the staircases don't play their usual tricks on her when she's alone?" asked Eleanor. Clara looked at her in surprise. _That's nice of her._

"It would be my pleasure, Miss Merryweather, Miss Oswald." The Lady curtsied again and the two women did the same.

"Thank you, Lady Deidre. We must be off now, good day to you," Eleanor said and started walking again.

"Yes, thank you so much! I'll see you later!" Clara waved at the portrait and hurried to follow.

"That was really very considerate of you," she said to Eleanor when they reached the top landing of the marble staircase. Eleanor looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Asking her to give me a hand and make sure I don't get lost."

"Well, of course... you're obviously uneasy about the prospect of having to use the moving stairs on your own and seeing as it's unlikely that I will always be able to be there to assist you, it's only natural that I make sure somebody is," Eleanor said, sounding confused that Clara was even mentioning it.

"Still... you didn't have to do it. You could have just left me to deal with it like everyone else  so, thank you."

"That's all right, really. Don't mention it," Eleanor assured her with a bashful smile. She cleared her throat. "Come on, I don't like being late," and lead the way down, across the entrance hall, took a left turn and down the steps that lead to the dungeons.

A few people were already there, chatting easily and setting up their cauldrons and ingredients. Clara followed Eleanor to the second row and took the time to look around while her companion unpacked her own equipment. It was the same dungeon that Snape used to teach in but it didn't look as gloomy and foreboding as it did in his time. Evenly spaced torches along the walls now provided a comfortable level of light. The bare stone walls were covered with posters of various magical plants used in potions with their individual parts labelled and annotated according to the part's effect in brews. They were both educational and decorative, Clara thought. A group of students strode into the dungeon chattering and laughing over something one of them had just said. In their midst, hair now a cerulean shade of blue with a white emo fringe, was Teddy. Apparently it had been him who had cracked the joke. "Oh go on, Ted! Sit with us, why don't you?" one of his fellow Hufflepuffs said when Teddy spotted Clara and Eleanor up front and made to join them. "That's all right guys. I'll see you later."

"Look, I know you keep saying she's your friend but you don't have to sit with her just because you're both head students. You can compete with her from the other end of the room too, you know," the Hufflepuff boy went on in a whisper that none the less carried through the echoing dungeon. "Yeah, she's such a stick in the mud," piped up a Gryffindor girl next to him. "She makes old McGonagall and Kullervo look like party animals in comparison. You'd think she'd drop dead if she cracked a joke or something." An approving snigger went through the group.

Clara frowned at them. Didn't they realise that everyone could hear them or was it simply that they didn't care? She glanced at Eleanor sitting next to her. She was leafing through _Advanced Potion Making_ in a leisurely fashion and wasn't showing a sign of having heard anything if it hadn't been for the fact that her eyes weren't moving.

"Well how do you know she never cracks a joke if you don't even talk to her?" Teddy countered calmly. His voice was still light but there was an undertone to it. "I always have a great time with El and am never short of a laugh," he finished matter-of-factly, smiled, turned on his heel and walked up to the second row where he dropped his cauldron next to Eleanor's with a silent clonk. "Wotcher, El, Miss Oswald! Have a good break?"

"Clara, please Teddy. And yes, it was very nice. Couldn't have asked for better." She gave Eleanor a sincere warm smile which the girl returned with a surprised and shy one of her own.

"Yeah, she's a gem, isn't she?" Teddy said cheerfully and pulled his friend into a one-armed hug again. "Beauxbatons counted their losses when she left, but they can cry all they want, we're not giving her back, not for all the Galleons in the world!" And he deposited a smacking kiss on El's cheek.

"Uuuaaargh! Stop slobbering on me! Get off! Hufflepuff cooties all over me!" Eleanor whined theatrically, shoving him away and wiping her face with her sleeve like a 5-year-old. All three of them laughed and Teddy made to set up his things.

 

“So, who teaches Potions?” Clara asked. “I don’t remember you telling me about anyone earlier, and last I heard Horace Slughorn wasn’t getting any younger…”

“Oooh, you don’t know the Dungeon Mistress? You’re in for a treat,” Teddy exclaimed, rubbing his hands together.

“Dungeon Mistress?” Clara snorted. “I only know a few people who would like to be called-“

She was interrupted by the sound of a heavy door groaning open in the front of the room, letting a gust of thick, white smoke spread through the room from the large cauldron at its heart.

“You already know which potion we’re starting to brew today, so why haven’t you picked out  the ingredients?”

_That voice. I know that voice._ Clara was near panic, every muscle in her body tensing up. _If  the Doctor and I made it to this Universe...what if  we weren’t the only ones…_

When a tall feminine figure emerged from the smoke, Clara’s blood froze. Long, dark hair artfully pinned up, slim-fitting dark clothes, pale blue eyes framed by angular features…

“MISSY!” the English teacher was up in a second, her mind racing. She needed to get the Doctor, but that would mean leaving those kids alone with a dangerous psychopath. Did she just kill the Potions teacher before coming there? Could the kids defend themselves against her with their magic? Could there-

“Missy? Oh my, no one has called me that for quite a while… You’re professor Noble’s cousin, I presume?” came the amused answer in a slight Scottish accent. As the mist slowly cleared around the cool walls of the dungeon, Clara realised that it wasn’t really the rogue Time Lady standing in front of her – even if the similarities were quite uncanny. The tall, middle-aged woman had slightly softer features, and the glint in her eyes seemed more amused than steeped in madness. Her robes – that quite frankly looked a lot like Missy’s usual dark purple dress -  were long, black and swishy and were cut in a way that tastefully accentuated her every asset, which she wasn't lacking to begin with. Now that the imminent danger was gone, her sight was quite pleasing to the eye… If Clara ignored the fact that she had just made a fool of herself in front of this gorgeous creature. “I am so, so sorry, Professor, it’s just that you reminded me of someone-” Clara was fighting down the blush on her cheeks when she was interrupted.

“Someone dangerous, from your reaction…” she chuckled lightly, and turned her eyes upwards. “But I assure you that I’ll only be dangerous if I have to tell my class one more time to go and fetch the ingredients for today,” she said, a smile on her face. It was only when she heard the bustle of the students moving that Clara realised the two of them had an audience. The class had fallen completely silent while they watched the exchange between the two women. There was an unmistakable air of authoritative, effortless elegance and grace about her that caught at everyone's attention and held it. Clara could immediately see that this woman hadn't had a minute of disorder in her class in her entire life and immediately envied her for it.

With the students properly distracted, the Professor came closer, fully focusing her piercing eyes and speaking in a low, velvety voice.

“It seems your Missy has you on your toes, Miss… Or Mrs?,” she said, a single eyebrow raised.

“Oswald. Clara. Miss. Definitely not Mrs.,” she answered in a rush, beating herself mentally. She was usually much smoother than this, but the little scare in the beginning of the class had unsettled her completely.

“Boudicca Urquart, Potions Mistress,” she took Clara’s hand and shook it with a firm grip. “And what brings you to my class? I understand you’re not working some secret mission like your uncle.”

“No, nothing of the sort,” she answered, finally pulling herself back together and managing to sound like a proper adult. “I’m actually a teacher myself, so watching different classes during my travels is a very interesting experience.”

“A wandering teacher? This is fascinating. We definitely have to talk more, Missy Oswald,” she quipped, her lips quirking into a grin. “But for now, regrettably, I still have some young, nosy and quite inefficient people to manage,” she raised her voice slightly, and a few students who had been straining to hear their conversation shrunk into their seats.

"I trust you all had a good first week back and are ready to start working in earnest again. I asked you to write me a 4 foot essay on the problematic of brewing Veritaserum and I would like you to hand it in now". Clara couldn't believe her eyes when at that, a scuffle almost ensued with everyone (the boys in particular) trying to be the first to hand in their parchments. _Blimey, the woman 's got them whipped,_ she thought in only slightly grudging admiration. When everyone had settled down again, Professor Urquart continued. "As I have announced last time, today we will start the first of our two large projects for this term: the brewing of Veritaserum. Having written the essays you are now fully aware of the difficulties this potion presents as well as the dangers should anything go wrong. Not to mention that it's quality will make up a large part of your final grade this year. I therefore remind you once more to invest particular diligence into your work." She surveyed the class with a serious look before topping it off with a smile that showed off her perfectly straight, pearly teeth. "Let the brewing commence!" The cavernous dungeon, till that moment as silent as the grave, was once more filled with the rustling, clinking and scuffling noises of potions books being opened to the right page, ingredients being pulled from the kits and poured out for measuring, cutting boards and silver knives being taken up. Clara was all tingly with excitement! She had always wondered how this and some of the other potions were made.

She watched Eleanor and Teddy weighing talons the size of reaping sickles before placing them into a mortar and beginning to crush them. She took a peek into Teddy's book, which he had enchanted to float at eye-level above the desk. It said: "Take 1.3 oz of griffin talons and crush into a grainy powder, take 0.5 oz of porcupine quills and crush to a fine powder. Add the talons to the cauldron and boil for no less than 4 and no more than 5 minutes on a strong flame. Take the cauldron off the heat before adding the porcupine quill, then stir 3 times counter-clockwise and one time clockwise. Repeat the stirring pattern 4 times before returning the cauldron onto a medium flame. The mixture should begin to froth gently in the colour of coal ash. When the froth begins to thin add 3 oz of Essence of Devil's Breath before bringing the mixture to boil. Boil on high flames for no less than 1, no more than 2 minutes! Reduce flames to low immediately!"

_Blimey_! Clara thought _And here I thought making soufflés was tough!_ She had hardly finished the thought when it got confirmed. There was a minor explosion, the sound of splashing liquid and several people screaming. Clara and her companions whirled around just in time to see the remnants of a fountain a cauldron had regurgitated raining down upon its owner, the Gryffindor girl that had called Eleanor a stick in the mud and her friends, drenching them in what looked like liquid mortar. Professor Urquart rushed over to them.

 "Anybody injured?" The group wiped the thick, lumpy, milky liquid out of their eyes but shook their heads no. "Do you know why this happened, Miss Fawcett?" Her tone was neither scolding nor inquiring but scholarly. They had encountered a problem and it needed solving. The Gryffindor girl shook her head. "No, Ma'am."

"Who here can tell me what caused this sort of reaction? Where did your colleague go wrong?" She now addressed the whole class. Eleanor lifted her hand to the level of her eyes. "Yes, Miss Merryweather?"

"Porcupine quills, Professor. They react explosively to sudden temperature increase, which is why they must never be added to a cauldron while it is on the fire, but gradually mixed into the brew while it is off the heat. I assume Miss Fawcett ground the porcupine quill first and the residue in the mortar got into the griffin talons and exploded on contact with the flames."

"Very good Miss Merryweather, take 10 points for Ravenclaw," she gave her a small smile. "There you go Miss Fawcett," she continued, turning back to the Gryffindor girl. "In the future, keep in mind that the order in which the ingredients are to be prepared is there for a reason." She flicked her wand and students, cauldron and table were once more as clean and dry as before. "Now try again," she instructed them and walked away.

As the lesson progressed, there were more such incidents, the most spectacular one being a Slytherin boy's potion, having turned a neon shade of orange and the texture and consistency of slime, boiling over in endless waves and threatening to cover the entire floor of the dungeon before Professor Urquart tamed it with a wave of her wand and made it disappear with another. Each time such an incident occurred Professor Urquart would inquire of the person in question whether they knew what mistake they had made. If they did, they received 5 points for the correct answer before getting to start over. In the cases when the student in question didn't know the answer, the potions mistress, as before, turned to the class. Mostly it were either Teddy or Eleanor who answered her, earning themselves 10 points each time. It was a very effective method, Clara had to admit, allowing the students to learn from their own and other people's mistakes before encouraging them to try again.

After dismissing the class, Professor Urquart turned her attention to Clara again – who felt much more prepared to deal with the other woman this time.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Oswald-“

“Clara, please”

“Clara, then,” she rolled the ‘r’ thoughtfully, her accent more evident.

“The pleasure was all mine, Professor, it was a really fascinating class.”

“Really? You didn’t feel like trying your hand at brewing?”

“Oh no, it’s not really my area of expertise…”

“I know from experience that a nomadic lifestyle is not very compatible with brewing complex potions,” she conceded, a faraway look on her face. “It was… almost twenty years ago, Merlin preserve me. But anyway, I really look forward to seeing you around the castle. Your cousin Rose told me a bit about your travelling ways, but I’m sure your experience as a teacher would make for the most fascinating stories!”


	19. The New Marauders

Clara exited the dungeon classroom to find Eleanor and Teddy waiting for her by the door, an amused expression on their faces.

“So I take it you enjoyed our Potions class?” Teddy sniggered.

“Yes, you have a very good Professor,” Clara smiled, but her mind was reeling – she would definitely need to talk to Rose later for the details of their backstory. She wouldn’t want to embarrass herself in front of the Potions Mistress again, after all.

"So, where to next?" she asked.

"That was the last class for the day," Eleanor said. "Now it's time for dinner and after that the extracurricular activities start."

"Oh yeah, I remember you mentioning those earlier. So what's the line-up?” she inquired as they walked up the stairs and crossed the entrance hall.

"Well, there's something for everyone really. The house Quidditch teams," Teddy started counting them off on his fingers, "various homework groups, Gobstone Club, Wizard's Chess Club, Book Club, Chocolate Frog Card Club, Art and Photography Club, the Orchestra, the Choir and of course the Duelling Club. Whatever flies your broomstick, you name it, we've got it."

"Wow, you sure do," Clara agreed as they sat down. Teddy had led them to the Hufflepuff table. "Are either of you on your house Quidditch teams?"

"Nope," said Teddy, ladling beef stew onto his plate.

"Any particular reason?"

"He's afraid to mess up his pretty hair," Eleanor quipped from across the table. Teddy stuck his tongue out at her.

"What about you?"

"I'm an avid fan of Quidditch, but I do not play well myself," Eleanor said dipping a roll into her stew with nimble fingers.

"Yeah, she prefers to watch her fiancé play," Teddy countered.

Clara's spoon froze half-way to her mouth. "Come again?" she asked, thinking she must have misheard somehow. Teddy had to be joking, right? Fiancé? The girl was seventeen, for crying out loud! This was the 21st century! Who in their right mind got engaged in their teens and while they were still at school?

"Yeah, come next summer, El here will be a blushing bride in pearly white, marrying her childhood sweetheart and living happily ever after," Teddy nettled.

Eleanor gave him a measured look, her eyes narrowed, but refrained from responding to her best friend's teasing in any other way. Meanwhile Clara struggled to wrap her mind around this concept. She had to consciously remind herself that this was not the muggle world she was used to, where people who got married in their twenties were accused of rushing it. There were no Universities in the wizarding world. All the Harry Potter books implied that any and all further education was received in the respective wizarding jobs in the form of training and apprenticeship. In the wizarding world, once you turned 17 and graduated from school, you were a fully fledged adult witch or wizard. Lilly Evans had been 18 or 19 when she married James Potter, Clara remembered, and had Harry when she was 20. _So, maybe Eleanor's engagement isn't really that much out of the ordinary._ Clara thought. Realising that offering congratulations was the polite thing to do on such occasions, she opened her mouth to do just that. But before the first word could even cross her lips, distant sounds of commotion reached their ears. Barely audible at first but getting louder, they heard heavy objects crashing to the ground, glass shattering, muffled screams and people running. Eleanor groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Two weeks," she grumbled "they couldn't behave for two bloody weeks!" She dropped her spoon and stood up.

"Oh come on El, now you're just being unfair! This could be Peeves, for all you know," Teddy countered but followed suit. Eleanor shot him a patronising look. "Don't hold your breath."

The Hall had gotten restless as well. A loud murmur swelled like the buzzing of an agitated beehive. People were giving each other quizzical looks and standing up from their benches. McGonagall called out: "Silence! Everyone remain in your seats!" The four heads of houses had risen and were already moving down the Hall towards the doors. "Prefects remain here and keep the order. No one is to leave the Hall until we know what's going on. Mister Lupin, Miss Merryweather," she turned to the Head Boy and Girl, "you will assist the teachers."  They nodded. "Clara, you better stay here where it's safe," Eleanor quickly added before she and Teddy followed McGonagall and the other teachers into the Entrance Hall and up the marble staircase. Clara stood there gaping for a full three seconds before muttering: "Like hell I will!" to no one in particular. She didn't take the Doctor bossing her around like that and she definitely wouldn't take it from someone half her age. And before any of the Prefects could as much as open their mouths to protest, she had dashed off after the little group.

Halfway up the marble stairs she came within earshot. "It sounds like it's coming from the trophy room,” Professor Lupin said.

"And whatever it is, it sounds like it's wreaking quite the havoc," Tonks observed as the crashes and smashes got louder.

"Probably just Peeves again," Teddy offered with an unconcerned air.

"I doubt it, this sounds like multiple perpetrators," Kullervo disagreed.

"Who could it possibly be?" Eleanor mumbled sardonically low enough so only Teddy could hear (and Clara, who unbeknownst to everyone, was following close behind).

As they hurried down the third floor corridor they encountered students running in the opposite direction.

"Miss Davies," McGonagall addressed a girl clutching at the lapels of her school robes," what is going on in there?"

"They're everywhere professor! One of them clawed my necklace off, look!", she pointed at her neck that was sporting pink, welting scratches above lapels that looked as if they'd been chewed. Just at that moment a terrified-looking first-year came running down the corridor screaming: "GETOFFGETOFFGETOFFGETOFFF!!" one of his arms flailing through the air like a windmill sail, with what looked like a furry pouch hanging off his wrist watch. The boy gave a particularly violent jerk of the arm and with a final "GET OFF!!" sent the pouch flying. It sailed over the heads of the little group and with a resounding clang hit the breastplate of a suit of armour before sliding to the ground with a silent thump. After a couple of seconds it stirred, swaying a bit groggily, before sitting up. It was approximately the size of a large mole, with long, flat paws and claws and black, sleek fur. It had a long, somewhat flat snout, a tail like an otter's and two tiny, black, beady eyes. It shook it's head as if to clear it and then looked around. Almost instantly the beady eyes homed in on Teddy and Eleanor and the shiny badges on their robes. With a tiny grumbling sound the creature dropped back onto all fours, charged and leaped at them. They ducked as one and did a forward roll, the creature flying over their heads. A shriek behind them had everyone pivoting around to see Clara wrestling with it over a key on a chain around her neck.

Eleanor pointed her wand at them " _Immobulus_!" They froze mid-action as if somebody had pressed the pause button on them. Teddy rushed over to Clara and carefully pried the immobilised beast's paws off the chain and held it aloft by its scruff. "Clara, what are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay in the Great Hall," Eleanor said with barely contained annoyance. " _Finite incantatem_ ," she added, pointing her wand at Clara, who instantly regained her ability to move.

"What is that thing?" Clara asked, pointing at the immobilised fur ball in Teddy's hand.

"It's a niffler. They like anything shiny and glittery and are very straightforward in getting their paws on it."

"If you might postpone the chit-chat for your leisure time Mr. Lupin..." McGonagall sniffed irritably as she and the other teachers marched down the hallway towards the source of the commotion, which seemed to be the Trophy Room.

"Right you are, Professor, sorry."

Teddy and Eleanor jogged after them, Clara hot on their heels. They all stopped on the threshold. The only way to describe the sight that met them would be 'Pandemonium unleashed'. There were dozens of them and they were everywhere!

Several were scampering hither and thither on the ornate chandeliers, making them swing to and fro, causing the candles to flicker, creating a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, while the nifflers systematically picked off the tear-drop-shaped crystal ornaments like cherries from a tree and stuffed them into hidden pouches on their bellies. Others were in the process of breaking into the glass cabinets. They scratched at the glass with their sharp, diamond-hard claws, cutting through it like hot knives through butter. Some had already gotten through and were busy gnawing and prying the polished silver and golden plaques for special services to the school, fastest snitch catches and most quaffel scores in a season off their hardwood bases. Several nifflers were piled up inside the Triwizard Cup like a very large, very furry sundae and appeared very happy about it. And judging by the hullaballoo coming from the opposite corridor, leading onwards to the other wing of the third floor, there were still more scampering about, trying to liberate the students from their shiny possessions.

"Holy cow!" Clara exclaimed, taking in the scene, her mouth agape. "There must be about 50 of them! Where did they all come from?"

"Professor Hagrid keeps them for his fourth-year Care of Magical Creatures class. Looks like they managed to escape from their crates," said Lupin.

"But how did they get into the castle without anybody noticing several dozens of black furry creatures scuttling around the place?" Clara asked incredulously.

"Not on their own," Kullervo said simply.

"Never mind that now, we need to get hold of them before they demolish the castle!" McGonagall snapped impatiently. And without further ado, she raised her wand towards the chandelier above her. It came alive and used its many tentacle-like appendages to wrap firmly around the little beasts and hold them in place. That seemed to be the end of it, at first, but the next moment they began to wiggle and within another moment they had slid out of the tentacles' iron grips like bars of wet soap. The tentacles began flailing about in an attempt to recapture their nimble prey but with the same result as before. The commotion caused the chandelier to swing around even more violently. There was a metallic groan and the next second the chandelier came crashing down to the floor like a canon ball. McGonagall sprang backwards with surprising agility, considering her age, Teddy and Eleanor grabbed Clara by the back of her cardigan, pulled her out of harm's way and behind them with one hand, casting a shield charm with the other along with the teachers. With an ear-splitting, resounding crash that shook the floor, metal and crystal fragments exploded in all directions, bouncing harmlessly off the invisible magical barriers. The nifflers crawled out of the debris and scattered at lightning speed.

Professor McGonagall huffed in annoyance. "Rubbery bones, I forgot about that. Nothing firm will hold them unless unperturbed."

"Charms and hexes then," said Kullervo and without even glancing around at it, he flicked his wand over his shoulder, immobilising a niffler that pounced from a case behind him in an attempt at snatching the Charms Master's silver earring. Clara had to admit it was a pretty kick-ass move.

Professor Urquart spoke up for the first time. "I think it would be best if we split up before they can spread out even further."

Professor McGonagall agreed. "Professors Urquart and Lupin will stay with me in the trophy room, " she began issuing orders. "Professor Tonks, Mr Lupin, you take the left hand corridor, Professor Kullervo, Miss Merryweather, you will take the right hand corridor." They all lifted the shield charms and set off, Tonks tripping over a protruding piece of the broken chandelier on the way out. Clara stood there rather awkwardly, unsure what to do. This may not have been the best idea now that she thought about it. What could she do against a horde of nifflers running amok, without having been taught how to properly use magic? As if on cue, Professor Urquart looked back at her over her shoulder. "Clara, we could use another wand in here," she told the young woman. _Sink or swim, then._ Clara reached into her pocket and pulled out... her mobile phone. Her stomach lurched. Not yet used to carrying a wand, having acquired it only the day before, she had left it on her nightstand, where she had put it down the night before, automatically pocketing her phone instead.

"I bet you could," she told the tall witch in front of her, in a chagrined voice. "Only problem is, I left mine on my bedside table." Professor McGonagall paused in the process of transfiguring the floor into quicksand, which effectively trapped three nifflers at once, and nailed Clara to the spot with that signature thin-lipped frown of hers. "This had better be a bad joke, Miss Oswald." She snapped irritably. "Are you seriously telling me that you ran head-first into a potentially dangerous magical situation without the means of defending yourself?" _What is it with the Scottish people and the eyebrows?_ Clara thought unnerved as she felt herself shrinking slightly under the headmistress' stern gaze, the witch's eyebrows contracted into one, solid angry line. "I didn't realise I didn't have it on me. I didn't need it until now," Clara said in her best obstinate voice.

"Well then, perhaps instead of being underfoot you could make yourself useful and fetch Professor Hagrid to help us. He lives in the wooden hut at the edge of the forest," McGonagall told her before turning her attention back to the quicksand. Clara understood she was being dismissed and was smart enough not to argue when she'd just been presented with such an easy way out. "Hut at the edge of the forest, right. I'll be quick." She turned on her heel and ran out of the trophy room and back the way they' d come, passing Teddy and Tonks who had already caught some of the nifflers by sticking them to a wall with a sticking charm.

Still navigating the corridors with some difficulty, Clara made her way out of the castle and into the grounds, spending the time trying not to squeal in more fangirlish glee at the prospect of going to see Hagrid. She arrived at the hut slightly out of breath but giddy with excitement and took a moment to collect herself before knocking on the heavy wooden door. She heard barking from inside, but they weren't the resounding, booming barks of the large boarhound Fang, but the high-pitched, yelping bark of a puppy, followed by heavy footsteps. The gamekeeper of Hogwarts was truly huge, especially compared to Clara's diminutive height. However, despite his gruff, intimidating exterior, his gentleness was obvious from the start.

"Ey? Who are you then?" He asked looking down at her with some surprise.

"Excuse me, Professor Hagrid," Clara said, "I'm sorry to burst in on you like this. I'm Clara Oswald-"

"Oh, you're one of them Nobles, are ye?" his ruddy face split into a wide smile that was half-discernable through his long, bushy beard. "Professor McGonagall told me about you and yer uncle. Said you'd be stayin' with us a while. Well, I just hope you'll give me less trouble than that little cousin of yer's. That little red-haired tyke has more curiosity on her than's good for her."

"Yeah, she's a curious one," Clara admitted. "I'm sorry to bother you, but they need your help up at the castle. Somebody set a bunch of nifflers loose in the trophy room and the teachers are having a hard time herding them all up again."

"You wha'? Nifflers? _My_ nifflers?" He pushed past Clara and walked around the hut, through the pumpkin patch and round the back. Clara followed but had to all but run to keep up with his long strides. It was only after they had rounded the hut that Clara noticed that there was another construction right inside the tree line. It looked like a barn or a stable for the lack of a better word and Clara assumed that in a way it was. Hagrid tapped the massive lock that hung from a heavy chain with his wand. Clara did a double take at that. But sure enough, it wasn't the pink, flowery umbrella she knew from the books, but a real, proper wand. Half a dozen questions popped into Clara's head, but she would have to file them away for later. At the moment it would seem too weird for her to know all the details of his life. Meanwhile, Hagrid had unlocked the doors, thrown them open and walked in. Despite her nagging curiosity, Clara remained hovering on the threshold. The encounter with the nifflers had taught her to err on the side of caution. The inside of the barn was gloomy and she couldn't see far. She could make out all sorts of shapes moving in the twilit space that was divided into bays. There was a muted cacophony of grunts, snorts, huffs, puffs, shrieks and other animal noises as Hagrid moved among them. They wafted over to Clara along with the distinct smells of hay, warm furry bodies and animal dung.

"Blimey!" Hagrid's voice came from the other end of the building. "Yer right, they're all gone!" There was the sound of shuffling and scraping and a minute later he emerged, carrying a tall stack of crates and a large, finely knitted net slung over his arm.

"Oh, I bet I know who the culprits are," he grumbled as he locked up the barn again with another tap of his wand and proceeded up towards the school with Clara running to keep up. "Those little troublemakers' ll know the devil when I catch 'em." Clara wasn't sure if he meant the nifflers or the people who took them, because to her he sounded more amused than actually annoyed.

They were back in the trophy room corridor far quicker than Clara had been down to the hut, and by then the four miscreants had already been caught and lined up against the wall.

The boy standing on the furthest right had dark blond hair and a face that had yet to emerge from the awkward transition between child and teenager – his round cheeks were aflame and he was looking very grumpy as the Head Girl stared daggers at him, giving him what was undoubtedly a sermon in rapid French. It didn’t take long for Clara to realise that this must be the little brother she had mentioned earlier.

To his left, barely hiding his amusement at the situation, was a taller boy with messy black hair and mischievous hazelnut eyes. He was the spitting image of Harry Potter – or at least, how Clara imagined him in her mind before the movies came out – and she could only guess that it was one of the Potter children who were mentioned in the Epilogue.

By his side and also looking completely unphased by the commotion around him was a gangly dark-skinned boy sporting the most impressive red-haired afro Clara had ever seen. The two boys in the middle exchanged looks every now and then, while Tonks (or was it Professor Tonks-Lupin now?) talked in a hushed voice to the last person in the line-up: standing half a head taller than the three boys was a girl, long, straight blond hair sticking out of a messy ponytail, her lips firmly pursed and a defiant look that would put any angry protester to shame.

In about ten minutes all the nifflers were finally back in their crates (with considerable help from Hagrid, who managed to be quick enough to catch some with his huge, bare hands), and Professor McGonagall turned to the teenagers.

“Mr. Merryweather, Potter, Weasley… and Miss Lupin. Why am I not surprised?”

_Weasley? Well, that explains the red hair._ Clara thought. _But wait... Miss Lupin?_

“Well, Professor, with all your, erm, _experience_ I bet nothing surprises you anymore,” said the Potter boy ( _James Sirius?_ ) as smoothly as he could, with his friends suppressing giggles at his side.

“Don’t get cheeky with me, young man. What do you have to say for yourselves?”

“We were just freeing these creatures, Professor. Getting them out of cages and into a more suitable habitat,” the girl’s voice matched her face, curt and angry. She was staring at Professor Lupin, who had just entered the room with Kullervo and Hagrid.

"Oy, an' what's that supposed to mean then? Are ye' sayin' that I don't know how ter take good care of my creatures?" Hagrid glowered down at her, his beetle eyes flashing up with offence.

"Oh no Hagrid! I didn't mean to say _that_ -"

"Oh Hope, do you ever stop to think how your words might hurt people?" Lupin said in a voice that to Clara sounded both stern and tired. He reached out to place his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off rather unapologetically. "Hope!" Tonks exclaimed in a reprimanding voice.

"Yes, _I_ have to watch my words in case they offend anyone, but everybody else can just-"

"Hope, Dad, come on, not right now, ok?" Teddy spoke up for the first time since Clara's return while also stepping between his father and sister. _Oh great, just what I needed, even more family drama,_ Clara thought with a mental eye-roll.

Before the tension in the room had a chance to escalate, Professor McGonagall re-established control over the situation. With a long-suffering expression on her face, she doled out detentions and deducted a fare amount of points from her old house. _Of course, they're all Gryffindors, why am I not surprised?_ The group then dispersed, Hagrid taking the crates with the recaptured nifflers back to the barn, the Professors McGonagall, Kullervo, Urquart and Tonks returning to the Great Hall and Professor Lupin taking the four culprits back to Gryffindor Tower, with Teddy tagging along. Clara was left standing in the demolished but now deserted Trophy Room with a brooding Eleanor.

"Oh well, we might as well get back downstairs and finish... well, actually start, our dinner," the Head Girl said with a resigned sigh. She was quiet after that and Clara saw that, pensive as she was, there would be no point in forcing a conversation onto her, so they walked back to the Great Hall in silence. Only after they had resumed their places at the Hufflepuff table and Clara had finished her stew (El had only poked at hers moodily with her spoon) that the young witch spoke up again. "Hogwarts traditions be damned, why, of all people, did the second coming of the Marauders have to include my brother?"

“So they are the school troublemakers now?” Clara tried to keep the chuckle out of her voice, but checked herself before she could say anything else. How much knowledge about the people at Hogwarts would be appropriate for her to have? “Aside from your little brother, who are they?”

“Children of war heroes with a little celebrity complex, mostly,” El scoffed. “Let’s see. There is James Sirius, Harry Potter’s eldest son – and even if you came from the moon I bet you know who that is. He got named after two huge pranksters, and seems to make it his life's mission to outdo his Dad, Grandpa _and_ Sirius Black himself in the chaos he brings to Hogwarts.”

Clara nodded quickly, and her young friend continued.

“Then there is Fred Weasley, son of George Weasley the war hero and owner of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. With his own Dad running a joke shop, there’s nothing else that we could have expected of him, really…”

“And the girl?” Clara asked, now truly in uncharted waters. “She’s Lupin’s daughter, right? With her two parents in the staff, why on Earth would she be a troublemaker?”

“Oh, Hope Lupin’s story is a bit more… complicated” El looked around and lowered her voice. “Teddy gets really defensive about his little sister, but she’s… well, she’s a werewolf, like her dad.”

Clara’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. _There is so much about this universe that I don’t know!_

“Yes, but her _condition_ doesn’t really explain why she turned into a troublemaker, does it?”

To Clara’s surprise, El smiled warmly at her, and her demeanour changed as she continued to talk more animatedly.

“Oh yes, it’s more of a recent development that she’s turned into such a rebel. She used to be a sweet little girl, you know? The first year I came to Hogwarts...”

 

A few hours (and a much livelier meal) later, Clara left the Castle with her mind whirring. Hogwarts lived up to – and sometimes even exceeded – her expectations of when she read the books, and getting to explore the place, with all the student drama, pranks and strange magic classes would be a blast. _But first, I need to get into the habit of carrying my wand with me. And I need some more invented backstory… Cross that, a_ lot _of invented backstory and possibly some more info about all those people._ She only hoped Rose would have some time to fill her in.


	20. Tryouts and Trials

Clara woke up early on Saturday morning. This was rather unusual for her - as a teacher she believed the chance to sleep late during weekends to be something sacred. On this Saturday morning, however, she had a very good reason to jump out of bed and get dressed before 9 am. The Gryffindor Quidditch team would be holding tryouts this morning and Eleanor and Teddy were going to be there and had invited Clara to join them. Their younger siblings Hope and Peter were among the hopefuls for the vacancies on the team so Eleanor and Teddy wanted to cheer them on. It was a clear, fresh September morning and Clara looked forward to her walk to the other end of the grounds where the Quidditch pitch stood. Just as she was emerging out of the shadow of the trees at the edge of the Forbidden Forest a joyous high-pitched bark reached her ears right before a squat, soft ball of fur came tumbling towards her, almost entangling itself in her legs.

"Hello there!" Clara crooned crouching down. The boarhound puppy tried to stretch out onto its hind legs in an attempt to lick her face but overbalanced and tumbled backwards onto its back. "Aaaaawww, look at you! You fluffy little thing! Aren't you just the cutest little fluff ball there is! Yes you are, you are!" she crooned as she reached out to pet and rub every available bit of the little velvety bundle. She was suddenly cast into shadow by a large figure obscuring the sun. Looking up she saw Hagrid standing over her. "Oh, Hagrid! Good morning! Is this your puppy? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be forward!"

Hagrid merely chuckled. "Don't fret none, Clara. It's all right, this little critter's more than happy ter find someone to cuddle her. So, what brings ye' out so early on this fine Saturday morning, ey?"

"Oh I was on my way to meet El and Teddy at the Quidditch pitch. We were going to watch the Gryffindor tryouts."

"Ah, I see. So, you're not just embracin' the teaching side of your Hogwarts experience, are ye?"

"Well, I..." Clara blushed slightly.

Hagrid chuckled again. "No reason to be ashamed," he winked at her conspiratorially. "It's a good thing, ye' know, holding onto that student's perspective. Not forgettin' what it feels like to be on the other end o' the rope. In my opinion it helps one be a better teacher. Ya' know, I didn't get a chance to finish my schoolin' first time around," he said, watching the puppy tumbling around among the roots of the nearby trees, sniffing, licking and chewing everything within reach and tumbling over her own disproportionate paws. "Some nasty stuff was going on at the school back  then and... well, it stopped me from moving on,"  he said without looking Clara directly in the eye. She knew what he was talking about of course, the time when Tom Riddle had opened the Chamber of Secrets and had framed Hagrid for the consequences, getting him expelled.

"But after the second war with... You-Know-Who, I got me second chance. Got tutored by the teachers an' got to sit my exams an' it made me appreciate both points of view in a way..." he trailed off. "D' ya' know what I mean?"

Clara smiled widely. "Yeah, I definitely do."

Hagrid smiled and nodded. "Well, don't let me keep ya. Fanny an' me are gonna go for a little walk. See ya later, Clara."  And with that he pulled out his wand, transfigured a stone on the ground into a ball and threw it. Fanny, the boarhound puppy went bounding after it, barking madly with joy.

"Ok, bye!" Clara waved after them. As she made her way across the grounds she pondered what Hagrid had just told her. He had always been one of her favourite characters in the entire series and knowing that his unfailing loyalty had been rewarded and that he had been given a chance to regain what Voldemort had taken from him made her unspeakably happy and her steps had a definite spring to them.

It was not difficult to spot Eleanor and Teddy once Clara got to the Quidditch Pitch: they were the only ones wearing different House Colours among the many Gryffindor students lounging about the bleachers. El was looking slightly bored, her straight posture as close to a slouch as the girl would allow herself in public, but her friend was constantly running his hand towards his hair, colours changing with every swipe of his fingers as he fidgeted.

“Hello, you two!"

“Good morning, Clara! How are you today?” Eleanor smiled at her.

“I’m good, thanks,” she said, sitting down between El and Teddy so she would be able to talk to both of them.  “So, are the Gryffindors really ok with other houses watching their tryouts?” 

“We’re Head Girl and Boy, which makes us sort of neutral parties, not unlike the teachers…” El pointed out with a level voice, before smiling and leaning into Clara’s direction. “Even so, I’d love to see the Gryffindor brave enough to try and keep Teddy from watching his baby sister.”  

 “You’re also here for _your_ baby brother, El,” the boy in question replied, still not taking his eyes off the field, where the applicants were stretching and putting on their protective gear. 

 “Of course I am. But I unlike you am here to support Peter and Hope, not have a fit over them and because someone has to keep you from completely embarrassing Hope in front of her House and potential future team.”

 “What do you mean by ‘potential’? Of course she’ll get on the team!” he said, and Clara couldn’t help but feel that he was trying to convince himself more than Eleanor. “Even Uncle Harry says he’s hardly seen a Beater as fierce as Hope, and that was even before she hit her angry teenager phase. And now that the team is finally being captained by someone who isn’t a complete prat there’s no reason whatsoever why she shouldn’t get picked.” 

“And  I never questioned that,” Eleanor retorted patiently.

“What position is Peter trying out for?” Clara asked as much out of curiosity as in an attempt to change the subject.

  “Seeker," Eleanor answered. “He’s a nimble flyer and is really good at spotting details - I’m sure he’ll do very well too, _which is why I’m not sweating up a waterfall about it!”_ she shot a glare in her best friend’s direction. “I practically raised my brother, and people even accuse me of hovering, but Teddy takes fretting and fawning over one’s younger sibling to completely new levels.” El rolled her eyes, but Teddy seemed too preoccupied to even be listening.

 “Look, they’re starting!” 

The team captain, an upbeat, dark-haired girl with a short ponytail, who Eleanor said was called Melissa Warren, a Beater and new to the captaincy, blew her whistle and within seconds all the applicants had kicked off and were airborne (with varying levels of grace and accomplishment) zooming past the stands in a formation. Peter was easy enough to spot, being one of the smallest ones in the group. Hope was neither the only girl trying out nor was she the only one with a blonde plat but her posture and way of flying were _very_ recognisable. The captain had them all flying a warm-up round around the pitch first before separating them according to the positions they were trying out for. 

 The team, as Eleanor told Clara, needed a third Chaser, a second Beater and a Seeker. The Chasers were up first. Fred Weasley and James Potter who were already on the team flew a round with each of the four applicants, passing the quaffle and scoring as a trio before the individual applicants were given a chance to score 5 penalties each. Even though Clara knew very little about Quidditch, she could still tell that the first student wasn’t very good. He lost his balance and nearly rolled off his broom every time he had to take both hands off it to catch the quaffle. The second one was a considerably better flyer, but didn’t really have much force in her throws. The third one was a black girl with her plated hair died silver who looked like she was in her fifth or sixth year and not only managed to avoid all of the bludgers the captain aimed at her, but scored all of the 5 penalties on top of several goals. The final candidate, a burly seventh year student, flew and aimed well, but was clearly not a team player, never passing the quaffle to either of the other chasers, thus botching several goal opportunities.

The Beaters came next. They were a bit more difficult to determine for Clara. They clearly needed to be strong and fast to be able to keep up with the two aggressive balls, but more than that Clara couldn’t tell. Fortunately for her, Teddy kept up a constant commentary on all the potential Beaters’ performances, including Hope’s. She was the last in her category to try out. She wasn’t the fastest, but she flew with a purposeful determination, hitting every bludger she set her eyes on with a ferociousness  that sent them shooting across the entire pitch. The captain hit a bludger, aiming it at Fred who was flying by with the quaffle under his arm. Hope intercepted the bludger mid-flight, knocked it out of Fred’s way and into the Keeper with such force, it unseated him and sent him tumbling backwards through one of the hoops which he managed to grab at the last second to keep himself from falling, but which in turn allowed Fred and James to score two goals in one minute. 

 “Wow,  you weren’t just being a loyal brother when you said she was the best,” Clara commented, and El nodded and leaned towards Clara, whispering in her ear: “And one can only hope that she’ll use her pent-up energy in sports and give us and the poor Prefects a break.”

“But seeing as the Potter and Weasley kid have been on the team all this time, I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you,” Clara answered, but before El could reply, the Beater part of the trials was over and Teddy sat back heavily, breathing a sigh of relief.

“She did good,” he said, with a note of relief in his voice. “She actually showed her potential without letting that attitude of hers get in the way. Thank Merlin…” 

“And she was clearly much better than the other whimps who tried out this time,” El briefly leaned over Clara’s back and patted her best friend’s shoulder. “So it should be a pretty straightforward decision for Warren, I’d say.” 

It was finally time for the Seeker tryouts, and despite her general relaxed air, Clara could tell that El was paying extra attention now, watching the applicants getting divided into pairs, like a hawk.

“This part of the selection seems a bit different…” Clara said. 

“Yes, it would take too long if they just let the snitch go in the beginning and have them all looking for it,” Teddy answered, way more responsive now that the source of his nervousness had passed. “So they just release it in front of the candidates, and make them chase it in pairs, and then match the winners against each other until the best one wins.”

 El’s little brother - Peter, Clara reminded herself - was the first one to go against an older (and significantly taller) girl, and his size proved to be to his advantage when he managed to outfly his opponent in all the loops and curves. The snitch zoomed by close to where the three of them were sitting, so Clara got the opportunity to see the exact moment when Peter finally got his hands on the snitch up close. He nearly overbalanced as he threw himself forward to reach it, but saved the situation brilliantly by doing a roll along with his broomstick. 

 There was a sharp intake of breath from Eleanor and Clara saw her fist clenching and unclenching around her knee before a proud, satisfied smile, the only evidence of her emotional investment in the tryouts, spread over her face. 

 Fifteen minutes later the Seeker tryouts were over as well, with Peter catching the snitch yet again - this time seated firmly on his broomstick. The rest of the applicants along with the team members started to make their way towards the middle of the field to hear the Captain’s verdict.

“It’s time! Let’s see what the captain has to say!” Teddy said, all his nervous excitement having returned.

“Don’t they just post it on a bulletin board or something?” Clara mused aloud.

“Why the unnecessary bureaucracy? This way any questions or doubts can be settled when all the candidates are still geared up and any issue can be addressed on the spot.

“Alright, Gryffindors!” the captain stepped forward and raised her voice with a smile, and the onlookers responded with a round of uncoordinated cheers. 

“Let’s meet our new Quiddich Team!

“For the position of Seeker…” she waved her arm, the candidates stepped forward and the audience finally settled down. Clara could see the girl’s eyes darting over the audience with some sense of theatricality. Oh yes, sports and charismatic leaders were quite the pair. 

“He was the fastest, the most agile, literally throwing himself at that snitch…” the other Gryffindor students started stomping their feet against the stands, creating a drum roll effect, but many others started shouting “Merryweather!” or even “Peter!”

“Alright, alright, he caught the snitch each time so there’s no fun in the suspense here. Peter Merryweather!” 

The audience erupted into cheers again and even the proud big sister let go a round of applause along with a wide grin. James and Fred immediately stepped forward and clapped their friend on his back, ushering him to the other side of the field where the current members of the team were gathered behind the captain. 

“Now, for the position of chaser…” The drum roll started again, but this time the shouts were not as unanimous. “Your new chaser is also the fastest and fiercest, but also the best team player who can actually keep up with our boys… Larissa Bright!” 

The black girl with silver hair turned to the audience and gave a short bow before joining the team on the other side. James and Fred also tried to pat her on the back the same way they did with Peter, but the fact that she was a good head taller than them made the gesture slightly awkward. 

“As for our new beater…” the captain’s voice suddenly sounded rather less enthusiastic, and instead of an excited drum roll, a murmur rose from the stands as a palpable tension filled the air. 

“Lupin!” Clara was startled by Teddy shouting from right beside her, and his shout prompted a few of the Gryffindoors to shout Hope’s name, but that only caused the tense murmurs from the others to intensify.

“Sean McKenzie,” the captain’s voice was shrill rather than loud. She continued talking, but Clara could barely hear what she was saying over the commotion of the crowd. 

“What? This is preposterous, Hope was clearly the best option!” Teddy had shot up from his seat livid, and Eleanor had followed, stepping to his side and pulling him back onto the bench with gentle force, talking to him in a quiet but urgent tone. 

“No way, Melissa!” objected Fred Weasley.

“Hope was ten times better!” James Potter protested.  Peter’s eyes shifted between Hope and the captain, looking both taken aback and angry.

“Why?” Hope’s voice rang out over the commotion, silencing it more effectively than a booming fog horn. “I don’t want to sound… It’s not that… Did I do anything wrong?”

“Hope, please, don’t make a scene,” the captain’s voice was hushed, but with the audience seemingly holding their breath, one could hear a pin drop. 

“I didn’t miss a single bludger. Sean is alright, but he nearly fell off his broom twice. I’m not a sore loser, Melissa, I just want to know the reason.

“Hope, come on, let’s talk about this later…”

“No!” Peter finally seemed to have found his voice again and he stepped up to stand beside his friend. “According to the rules, disputes involving the selection of new Quidditch Team members have to be settled on the spot!” he insisted and even at such a tense moment Clara couldn’t help but notice how much he suddenly looked and sounded like his big sister.  “And it doesn’t make any sense for you to not pick the best bloody player for the team!” 

“Look, Merryweather, my job as a captain is to look out for the entire team, ok?” she said quickly, crossing her arms. “Yes, Lupin is the best player, but I have to take many other things into account while making this decision, and McKenzie is the best fit for the team on the whole.” 

“Other things such as what?” Hope’s voice rose in decibels and she stepped up to face the captain, crossing her arms in turn. “I demand to know why I am not good enough!” A murmur rose from the spectators once more.

Melissa looked slightly uncomfortable and self-conscious for the briefest of moments, before she set her jaw, assuming an air of downright defiant authority.

“Fine. I didn’t want to bring this up, but you insist on forcing my hand! I chose McKenzie because you’re not a reliable team member! You would be out for several days every month, which would interfere with team practices. Not to mention the inconveniences that would come up if there’s a match during the full moon. If we keep having to have a substitute, then there’s no point in having you on the team in the first place.

“But the professors set the schedule, they would surely make-” James started, but the captain cut across him loudly.

“Also, Quidditch is an aggressive game, and the Beater is the most aggressive position. I don’t want to risk… I have to look out for my team, for the _en_ t _ire_ team and it’s my job to make sure everyone is safe. “ The pitch was silent as the grave once more.

“You mean, keep everyone safe from _me_ ,” Hope’s voice was rough and heavy, but her body was completely still, even her face was eerily blank. “Screw you, Warren.” And without another word, she turned around and left the pitch, her head held high. 

Melissa watched her go with a disgustingly superior look on her face. She turned her attention to the rest of the team. “McKenzie will train hard and learn with you guys, and we’ll have a good chance at winning with him.”

“Yeah? Well, you’ll have to do it without me, then,” Peter’s voice rang out.

“Excuse me?” the captain stared at him in surprise.

“You heard me! I’m not playing on a team that’s being captained by a discriminating, cowardly bigot!”

“Yeah, she’s a werewolf - get over it! She’s also the best beater the team has seen in a long time - no offense, Melissa, ” Fred piped up, his voice light despite the tenseness of the situation.

“And as for ‘keeping the team safe’ from her,” James drew quotation marks in the air with his fingers, “did you stop to think that half of the team are her best friends who spend all their time with her anyway?”

Melissa turned an ugly shade of puce and spluttered in indignation, obviously searching for and failing to find words to justify herself.

“I… That’s… That’s completely beside the point!” she barked at them.

“Oh yeah? Is there even a point other than you having your head stuck up your ass ever since you got the badge a couple of weeks ago?”

“I… you… I will not be spoken to like this! I am your captain and I demand you respect me!” Melissa all but shrieked, stomping her foot on the ground.

“You’re not my captain, I quit,” said James and shoved the quaffle he had been cradling under his arm none too gently into her chest before turning and walking away.

“So do I,” said Fred and followed James off the pitch. “Good luck finding yourself a whole new team, _captain_ ,” he called over his shoulder.  

Clara was dumbstruck by what she had just witnessed and it took her a few seconds to collect her thoughts until she turned to Eleanor. Surely her Head Girl friend would have a solution for this madness. But before she could say anything, Teddy stormed past them, in the same direction that his sister and her friends seemed to have gone.

“That’s… That’s just unacceptable. What is this girl thinking? They will surely do something. Hell, if not, I’m doing something. Isn’t a professor supposed to supervise these things?” a second too late she realised she was ranting, but what she did not expect was the look of resigned sadness in Eleanor’s eyes. 

“No, the team selection is the Quidditch Captain’s prerogative, that’s why they have a similar status as the Prefects, with the exception that the Captains don’t answer to Teddy and me but only to their Head of House.”

“But that girl is abusing her power! Can’t you go to her Head of House?”

Eleanor looked at her and let out a bitter laugh. “You mean Remus Lupin? Hope’s father, and also a werewolf to boot? Sure, and then what? Get him to force the captain to let his daughter into the team? Yea, I’m sure that will go over well and won’t actually make things worse.”

“What about the rest of the House? Will the Gryffindoors just sit back and watch while such a big injustice happens right in front of their noses?”

“Gryffindoor chivalry alone doesn’t erase centuries of prejudice, you know…” El said, defeated. “Some parents actually took their children out of Hogwarts when they found out that yet another werewolf was going to be here…” 

“But this is so horrible! That poor girl! No wonder she’s acting out, I’d want to burn the whole school down if I was being treated like that.” 

They were slowly walking back to the castle, and El stopped to give Clara a small smile.

“You know, my penfriend said exactly the same thing to me the other day. She’s from Brazil, where non-humans are treated slightly better by the magical community… Was it like that for you growing up?” her voice was cautious, and the look she gave Clara indicated another question entirely.

“Oh, me? No. My best friend is a non-human,” Clara deliberately kept her answer vague. The Nobles kept their true identity secret and she was sure that they had their own good reasons for it and she wouldn’t dream of outing them behind their back and without their permission. “But I’m just your run of the mill _homo sapiens…_ I just travelled around a lot, and if there’s something that it teaches you, it’s that humanity is honestly very overrated. And this morning is just further proof of that.” 

Eleanor nodded and hummed her agreement as the two of them continued to walk on in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

“What about the other schools?” Clara asked by the by.

“Well,” Eleanor sighed, “it’s far from rainbows and butterflies in any of the European schools, really. Things are changing but very, very slowly. Beauxbatons had a bit of a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy as far as blood status is concerned. Nobody addressed or challenged it openly, but it also wasn’t something you went around advertising.”

Clara instantly thought back to the _Goblet of Fire_ and Madame Maxime’s utter terror at the mere thought of it even being implied that she had Giant blood so Clara supposed it wasn’t really surprising that she hadn’t had the guts to open that can of worms by advocating public tolerance.

“And Durmstrang?”

By now they had reached the steps to the castle. Eleanor paused and her face took on an odd expression. It was serious but Clara could have sworn that for the briefest of moments there was also a hint of something else there. Not quite a smile, but a kind of glint in her eye. Clara couldn’t be sure, for it was gone as soon as it had come.

“That is a story for another time… and more private quarters.”

Clara raised her eyebrows. Now, _that_ made her curious, but she knew when to take a hint. “Okay… fair enough, rain check, then.”

They said their goodbyes, Eleanor heading upstairs to check on the others, while Clara made her way back to the TARDIS, mulling over everything she had seen and heard.

 

Despite what Eleanor had said, Clara hoped that it wouldn’t end there. And it didn’t. The other shoe dropped the very next Monday, though not in the way Clara had imagined and, to be fair, it was more of a bombshell than a shoe. It happened during the Gryffindoor fourth year’s Defense against the Dark Arts class. 

Clara was quite excited to finally get to watch Lupin’s class - whereas Rowling had not described all the Hogwarts subjects in much detail, she was pretty clear about how Harry’s third year classes had been stimulating - and that it would be interesting to say the least. 

She chose the fourth year’s lesson out of another form of curiosity - mainly, if there was any curriculum progression that had made sense in the books, or whether Harry’s education had been as appallingly inconsistent as it seemed because of the constant change in Professors. 

Lupin’s classroom was very much in tune with what she had imagined from the books - a spacious room dominated by old, heavy desks in the middle, while the walls were covered in interesting diagrams, drawings and the odd magical creature lounging in well-lit glass cases. 

With some curiosity, Clara noticed Hope’s blond ponytail among the students, always set a little bit apart from her fellow students. She took a seat at the back of the classroom, right in front of where Clara had placed her chair, paying her no mind at all. In fact, the girl was keeping her eyes mostly downcast,  alternating between twirling her wand between her fingers and tapping it against her knee. 

From the other side of the classroom, her father didn’t seem to find anything odd about the girl’s behaviour, his eyes barely stopping at her desk as he took in the classroom. 

After collecting a pile of essays with a flick of a wand, Remus Lupin started pacing the front of the classroom with a relaxed posture.

"So after your fascinating dip into the theory of magical shielding, we're ready to move on to the more practical part. Now you know the maximum length, width and area that a single charm can achieve, as well as the stacking potential when there are multiple casters, but it is quite another thing to test your own mental strength, your own wand, against the spells of adversaries and other magical effects." 

As he continued with the minutiae of a few particular shield charms, Clara found her mind wandering towards the Professor himself - his slight limp as he walked, the grey that dominated his hair, and the deep lines in his face that just slightly contrasted with the descriptions of the books. On the other hand, she could not find any visible signs of the tormented, secretive character that Rowling described through Harry’s eyes. Quite the contrary, here was a man who was obviously enjoying the comforts of a comfortable home and a loving family - he was relaxed, cheerful and even showed signs of developing a little bit of a belly. 

His students’ reactions were quite in line with what Clara expected - some very interested, some slightly bored and most of them taking some sort of notes. It was only Hope’s behaviour that struck her as a little odd - far from the outspoken, energetic girl that she had glimpsed at the tryouts, she was subdued and deliberately refusing to even look in her father’s general direction. 

But soon enough, Lupin called for the class to roll up their parchments and take out their wands, and it was unavoidable even for the sullen girl to face the room. With a wave of his wand Lupin sent all the desks and chairs up against the wall, creating plenty of space in the middle of the class.

“Alright, now I’d like you to set yourself up along the length of the room in two rows of pairs. The left line in each row will remain stationary while the right line will move on down one place after each round. That way everyone will get a turn with everybody else. Also, the moving line will be the “attacking line”, so to speak. Casting jinxes and hexes which the partners in the left line will have to try to shield themselves against or deflect them. You will keep it simple. Nothing that could cause your classmates any injuries. Then you will move down the row to your next partner and so on. After you’ve come full circle, you will switch and the left line will be the ones attacking and rotating. Understood?” There was a chorus of murmured agreement. “Excellent, to your places then.”

There was an air of excitement as the students bustled into place and rolled up their sleeves, wands at the ready, and even Hope had perked up, holding her wand steadily in a firm and confident grip while staring intently at her current opponent. 

At Lupin’s signal, all the students started shouting incantations, and soon the air was filled with colourful flashes of light and loud noises. There was a muffled “oof” when a tall boy’s shield failed to withstand a leg-locker curse and he fell to the floor, and the occasional laughter as another sillier spell hit its mark. 

While it all looked like pure chaos to Clara, Lupin seemed to have some notion of the situation, expertly manouvering between the students to correct stances, diction and movements without getting hit by wayward spells himself.  Aside from her growing admiration, Clara was curious about how he would react when he reached his daughter - but Lupin was only halfway down the line of Gryffindors when the sounds of spells were drowned out by Hope’s angry shout. 

“What the hell, Warren, he said _simple_ and _inoffensive!”_ Hope was sitting on the ground, holding tight to her wand while her hands were covered in blisters that looked quite painful. 

The other girl - whom Clara only now recognised as the Quidditch team captain - raised her eyebrows in a display of would-be innocence. “What’s the matter, Hope? Can’t even handle a little jinx without immediately getting your hackles up?”

“Girls, that’s enough-” Professor Lupin walked towards them, hands raised in a placating gesture, but he was summarily ignored. 

Hope shot up from the ground and took a step forward, at which the other girl visibly flinched. “Well, _you’re_ the one who would rather RUIN the quidditch team because you’re too SCARED of playing alongside someone like me!” her voice trembled at the end, but she did not back down.

“Miss Warren, Miss Lupin, that’s quite-”

“ YOU were the one who ruined the team! Just because you had to stick your snout into -” but before the Quidditch captain could finish, Hope - Clara hesitated even to think, but the girl _growled_ \- and lunged forward, shouting a string of spells that had the other girl on the floor in no time. 

The silence that fell was so absolute that one could hear a pin drop, and all eyes were trained on Professor Lupin’s shocked face. He immediately stepped in between them, pushed Hope’s wand arm down in a firm grip and looking at her sternly. 

“Hope, stop! This is unacceptable. Attacking your fellow student, your House mate!” his voice started low, but then he turned his head to the general direction of the class. „ I’ll have to take twenty points from Gryffindor, and you’ll have detention for -”

“What about her, Dad? Didn’t you hear what she called me?” Hope’s voice rose in volume with each word, and she yanked her arm away from her father, rubbing at her wrist. 

Lupin’s eyes narrowed, and he continued in his low tone of voice. “Don’t interrupt me, young lady, you -”

“You don’t even CARE, do you? She can call me whatever she wants! She can stop me from playing, she can treat me like an animal - YOU JUST LET EVERYONE WALK ALL OVER US AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE!” 

Tears were streaming down her reddened face, and she stormed out of the room, not even bothering to pick up her bag on the way out. 

Lupin took a long breath, hiding his face behind his hands for a few seconds before addressing the class with a clear, level voice. “Class dismissed,” he said, simply. The students did not move, still staring at Lupin. “Please.” At the slight quiver in his voice, the students quickly filed out, leaving only Melissa Warren behind, still sprawled on the floor, groaning.

He knelt next to her on the floor, murmuring counter-spells, but as soon as she regained movement in her arms there was a noticeable flinch away from Lupin, at which he stopped, took a respectful step back, and extended his hand.

“It’s alright, Miss Warren, nothing serious happened, you should be all right now. Do you want to go to the Hospital Wing?”

She cast him a dubious look and shook her head, quickly scrambling up from the floor and leaving the room.

Clara very much wanted to leave unnoticed herself, but it was - of course- in that moment that Professor Lupin seemed to realise Clara was still there. He gave her a stiff, humourless smile. 

“This wasn’t exactly a typical lesson, I would say…” 

“No…” Recalling everything Eleanor had said at the tryouts, Clara debated for a moment whether it _would_ in fact be better to take a leaf out of Lupin’s book and just ignore the elephant in the room, but seeing as that sort of behaviour was obviously what had gotten then into this situation, she decided to follow her instincts and speak her mind.

“But Professor, I don’t know if you actually heard what Miss Warren said, but from this side of the room I heard quite clearly. She used the expressions ‘hackles’ and ‘snout’ quite deliberately, and I imagine Miss Lupin took offence at -”

“Thank you, Miss Oswald, but I heard what she said just fine,” he interrupted her, but his voice still held a kind, if tired, tone. “I imagine you have the same political views as your cousin concerning… well, our particular situation in society, but this is about Hope more than it is about any idea.” He paused, and at that moment Clara could see the old fear and bitterness creeping back into his face. “Having body-parts compared to dogs and wolves is usually the least of our concerns. I’ve been called much worse, sometimes even by students here when they think I’m not listening.” He took a long breath, and his face softened slightly. “Hope… She’s a sensitive child, she always was, but with the world being as it is, she will have to learn how to deal with it.”  

Clara stared at him in disbelief. Was he being serious? That was the attitude he was raising his children in? ‘The world hates us no matter what, so let’s just roll over and play dead every time somebody takes a kick at us?'

“I know that face, Miss Oswald, and I see the family resemblance there.” Lupin offered her another one of his now signature mirthless smiles. “It’s easy to find immediate, radical solutions when you haven’t been living with this _situation_ for as many decades as I have. “ 

Clara knew a fruitless argument when she saw it, so she bit her tongue and swallowed her initial retort.

“So… On another note, isn’t it strange giving your own kid detention?” she said instead. 

“Oh no, teaching my own children is enough of a challenge as it is, but when it comes to detentions I have an arrangement with the Headmistress for other teachers to take over their detentions. It would usually be their Head of House, but with my wife being Teddy’s and me being Hope’s, you can imagine how the situation gets quite tricky…” Slowly some humour crept back into his voice. “Even for regular kids, having both their parents as their Hogwarts professors wouldn’t exactly be easy…” 

Clara couldn’t think of anything to add to that and decided that it would be best to make her exit. “Right, well, I think I’ll be going now. I need to talk to some of the other teachers about visiting their classes.”

Lupin gave her a short nod before turning on his heel and walking to his desk. Clara was sure she heard a heavy sigh just before she closed the door behind her.

 

Despite the heavy, brooding feelings the events of the day had left Clara with, she was quite excited to head to the Dungeons after dinner. Professor Urquart, upon learning that she had next to no expertise in Potions, wanted to brief her about the classes that she was going to attend. The exact content of those briefings was quite a mystery to Clara, which was possibly the most exciting part. 

Clara was practically skipping when she reached the dungeon doors - despite getting lost a grand total of five times on the way - only to be met by a very surprised Boudicca.

“Oh Clara, nobody informed you? There has been a last-minute change of plans, and instead of enjoying your lovely company in the Dungeons to talk about study plans, I’m spending yet another night in the company of a moody teenager with an attitude. Oh, the joys of detention,” she finished with a small smile on her lips. 

“If only the students knew how tedious it was from the other side…” Clara commented. “Or maybe they do, and get in trouble to torture us as well. So what was it this time? An exploded cauldron? With what I saw from your classes, I can barely imagine one of your students being disrespectful towards you…” 

“Not in one of my classes, of course,”  she shrugged her shoulders haughtily. “No, this time it’s -” She stopped mid-sentence and her eyes widened, an appalled look in her face. “Merlin’s beard, Hope, who did this to you?” 

Clara, who had her back to the door, spun around and had to bite back a gasp. There stood none other than Hope Lupin, but this time her hair, instead of the neat, long braid, was disheveled and fell around her face in odd angles - that is, the half of it that was stil there. The other half seemed to have been crudely shorn, exposing two big, stretched, red, crescent-shaped scars across her scalp. 

“I did this. I’m through with hiding. Dad tried his bloody best to mark me in a place where no one would see it, but since everyone treats me like a beast anyway, there is absolutely no point in hiding it.” 

With some curious detachment, Clara noticed that she and her father shared the same bitter expression while talking about werewolf-related things, even though there was more anger and fresh hurt in the young girl’s voice. But in all, her heart broke for the teenager in front of her.

Hope's declaration was met with tense silence on the Professor’s end. Boudicca was looking intently at Hope, and Clara could notice that she was chewing on the inside of her cheek, the embodiment of tension of things unsaid. It didn’t take a legilimens to see that the Potions Mistress was carefully thinking over what she could and could not say to her colleague’s daughter - and Clara did not envy her the least in this situation.

Finally, she took a deep breath and extended her arm towards the girl.

“So, a new haircut, Miss Lupin? Thank Merlin you’re not having this detention with Kullervo, he would probably chew you out for how shoddy those severing charms were.  So sit down here, and let me clean this up a bit.” 

 Wiping at her face with her sleeve, Hope shot Boudicca a grateful smile before shuffling over to the other side of the room. It was only on the way that she noticed Clara’s presence, and her already red cheeks flushed even deeper.

 “Are you here again? Is your job, like, to watch all of my school humiliations or something?” her raspy mumbling eerily resembled a low growl, and Clara found herself blushing slightly. 

 “Just coincidence. I’m known for those,” she added quickly, and turned to Boudicca. “Anyway, send me an owl when you have another opening in your schedule, and meanwhile I’ll be back in the TARD- I mean, err, in my uncle’s house,” she spoke quickly, and was out the door even faster.  

“It’s not like I even have to try to catch up with this drama…” Clara mumbled as she navigated the dungeon corridors. And it wasn’t as if Hope’s new statement of a haircut wasn’t bound to make that particular family situation any less gossip-worthy for the whole school. 

 

When Clara knocked on the door of TARDIS Jr., Rose answered, holding two different picture books in her hands and looking slightly surprised to see her.

“Weren’t you supposed to stay later with Boudicca today?”  Rose stepped away from the door and let Clara in, settling tiredly in one of the chairs in the console room.

“Well, in a school full of teenagers there was bound to be some unscheduled drama…”

“I see your teenagers and raise you a toddler and a preschooler. Let me tell you what this last hour has been, trying to get the kids to bed,” she waved the books in her hand for emphasis. 

As if on queue, a child’s voice was heard from the hallway that led to the living quarters.

“Is Clara here? I wanna talk to her!”

“Donna, please, I told you five stories in three alternate timelines already…” came John’s tired and hushed voice.

“But she’s here! I heard her! I wanna-“

“At least keep your voice down, your brother is asleep!” 

In a few minutes, a defeated-looking John came into the living room, a smug-looking Donna running behind him, looking positively adorable in her double braids and quidditch-themed pajamas. 

 “Clara!” she settled into her lap. “ Are you going to train with Mum tonight? Can I come and watch? I can even teach you some spells!” 

“No you can’t, young miss. Spells are only for alien-invasion level emergencies and not for a _very_ clearly underage girl to play around with,” John chastised. “Hey, Clara. Weren’t you supposed to be at Boudicca’s?” 

“As I was telling Rose, some unexpected complications got in the way…”

“Let me guess - Hope Lupin. I had her class right after DADA, and the kids wouldn’t shut up about it…”

“And just now, she shows up to detention with Boudicca with half her hair shaved off and a bite scar in her scalp.”

“Oh my God, she didn’t,” Rose exclaimed. “Exposing the bite mark like that?”

“It’s not like we haven’t seen that coming from miles away…” commented John, shrugging. “I keep telling Remus her attitude it’s not going to get any better with his ridiculous notions about lycanthropy, but it’s not like he listens to me on this regard.” 

“And this is why you…” he picked up Donna from Clara’s lap, making her giggle, “…have to be thankful your Daddy is reasonable with you, even when you’re being stubborn and refusing to go to bed.”

It was only after several promises of Donna joining them the next weekend, two glasses of water, one change of pillows and even one impromptu short bedside story invented by Clara, that the little girl finally gave in to sleep and left the two women to their own devices.

They walked together to TARDIS Sr., who had a special room prepared for them, with soft, cushioned walls and flexible rubber floors and a miscellaneous assortment of training dummies, pillows and useful knicknacks. 

It was only after Rose stepped into the well-lit room that Clara took a moment to notice her new friend’s drooping posture and the dark circles under her eyes. 

“Rose, you look a bit tired… Do you want to take it easier today?” 

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been looking forward to blow off some steam all day, so let’s get on with some basic duelling!” 

Clara adjusted her grip on her new wand, satisfied with how much more natural it felt to hold it in position.  She and Rose had been training intensively every night after dinner, trying to catch Clara up on the basic concepts of magic that one would need in order to not raise any suspicions. Sure, there was no match for years of wizarding education - but with a combination of a teenage obsession with all things Harry Potter and the mentorship of someone who had gotten through the exact same process herself, Clara was slowly learning how to be - or at least to appear - comfortable around magic. 

“So I know _Expelliarmus_ and _Stupefy_ and _Protego_ , but no real idea of how to cast them…” 

“Well, luckily most of those basic duelling spells are quite straightforward, in that whip-like pattern that we saw two days ago. We can start practicing with shouting and exuberant gestures, but it’s considered more elegant when you can cast it as silently as possible, especially if things get wild in a classroom and you need to protect yourself from some idiot student’s mistake..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, dear readers! We apologise or the delay in updating, but it have been a busy few weeks. Lily was hard at work practicing for a series of concerts with her orchestra and I, as a member of an organisation committee for an academic conference at my university, was running around like a madwoman along with my colleagues in order to make sure everything went smoothly. That being done now, we can go back to being creative again. We very much hope you'll like the new chapter and as always ask you to please leave a kudo and/or a comment or a review below!
> 
> Love,  
> Eruanna & Lily


	21. The Research of John Noble

The Doctor’s Log, as translated by the telepathic field of the TARDIS: "September the 14th, I suppose it’s 2015, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the United Kingdom, Earth, Alternate Universe… I don’t recall the official name for this Universe, and the Time Lord records of the Multiverse Atlas are frankly too boring. 

 

It has been quite a while since I’ve conducted any investigation regarding another Time Lord-like being - or at least a being with Time Lord-like intelligence - so I decided to record my observations, so the data will be more freshly recalled at a posterior phase of research. 

 

The subject in question is a human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis regeneration of my… That would be my 10th official regeneration, originated from my right hand, which had been severed right after regeneration. The said meta-crisis was locked out of our current universe after unflinchingly committing acts of genocide, and was left under the care of one Rose Tyler, human.” There was a slight tremble in his voice. “When deciding over his fate, I was under the impression that the two would settle down for what humans describe as a… normal life? No, that was never for them. Maybe some sort of domesticity. Alternatively, they were provided with a TARDIS coral so they could give some sort of meaning and wonder to their mortal years by travelling around and exploring this particular Universe. 

 

Upon forced contact with these two individuals, 6 years, 3 months and 5 days into these lives (as far as their timeline goes) I have discovered that they very likely completely botched an attempt to reconcile both. The Meta-Crisis is likely misusing his superior intellect to interfere with human affairs - especially for the cult-like community known as the wizarding world, a closed-off community of individuals suffering the genetic consequences of Time Rift contamination.  He has sired two hybrid children, which show clear signs of Time Lord heritage, and potentially traumatized them.  He himself shows worrying signs of mental instability, which need to be further investigated. In short, this individual has the potential to present a threat to the people around him, as well as the general community that he is trying to affect.

 

As the Time Lord responsible for his creation, I find it to be my duty to investigate whether my suspicions are correct, and if they are, in fact…” He sighed heavily and cleared his throat. “Measures will have to be taken. I am not quite sure which - we will have to wait until the TARDIS is operational again. Perhaps exile in a distant corner of this Universe - but if Rose is not persuaded to let him go, she will look for him. Exile in another Universe? Pocket dimension? Time Loop? Well, there is still time to decide. A proper handling of the subject will be resolved as the investigation progresses.” 

 

 

“September the 16th, 21:45, or after the screeching of the small hybrids has stopped and the Forest is finally silent. 

 

Clara is out training to not look like an absolute moron while trying to integrate into wizarding society, so I have a few hours on my own to recount the events of the last few days.

 

Initially,  I tried to gather information from the official channels, from places that might have records of the subject’s conduct. He has adopted the human name of “John Noble”, in a move that strongly deviates from even my quirkiest former self, but this also makes him easier to locate in government bureaucracy and the like. 

 

Public records - easily accessible through the TARDIS - state that his name is John Noble, born in 1981, in Nísia Floresta, Brazil, of all places… But a British citizen still, so I assume his backstory includes British parents. Obviously. His official medical records are sparse and insignificant, and very obviously faked. His _real_ medical records were, of course, in this Earth’s version of Torchwood, which managed to give the TARDIS quite a workout when it comes to hacking…

 

_A few days prior, Torchwood Cyber Security division._

 

_“RED ALERT, RED ALERT, SECURITY BREACH!”_

 

“We’re being hacked?”

“No, that’s impossible!”

“Shit, no, we’re actually being hacked.”

“Dude, wait after the Doctor finds out his fancy firewall was not as good as he thought…”

“Not as good? More like ‘impenetrable, impregnable, the mightiest electronic barrier since’…”

“Just shut up you two, THERE’S SOMEONE INVADING OUR SERVERS!”

“They’re going for our medical records. Can you get an IP on the hacker?”

“On it. It’s a really good encryption system, the thing’s got more layers than a bleeding lasagna but… What the actual fuck?”

“Oh no. What is it now?”

“Guys, it’s alright. It’s the TARDIS.” 

“What now?”

“The TARDIS is hacking into our system.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

“Why would he even do that?!”

“To train his weird growing ship? To test his own firewall? Because he’s bored?”

“I bet it’s those freaky kids of his.”

“Come on, Steve, don’t be a prat. They’re different, but they’re practically babies!” 

“Tiny, but still freaky. I remember that one time he brought his daughter to work, and I swear she could read my mind…”

“Anyway,  false alarm. So as you were…” 

 

 

“His _real_ medical records proved to be quite alarming. After an initial full health check-up a few weeks after he first arrived in this universe, there are only a few injury-free months right in the beginning, followed by a constant stream of injuries. There are a few innocuous things, mild electrical shocks, sprained ankles and what the doctor’s report reads as “the deepest and most ridiculous paper cut in medical history”. But all the rest are bullet extractions, laser blaster burns, several broken bones and at least three instances of medically induced comas. This lasted for quite a few years, but then the frequency of the so-called battle wounds diminishes, and then stops altogether to be replaced with a more boring routine of sporadic check-ups and vaccines against tropical diseases. 

 

Some of the entries were quite enlightening: I discovered that his slight limp is not because of bad posture or uneven usage of hair products, but due to his right ankle being shattered to pieces and currently being held together by metal plates and screws. And there were also some concerning observations regarding mental health, of all things, but that line was not pursued further. 

 

This means, of course, that his meddling with human affairs is nothing new, but has been constant from the moment he landed in this universe - he probably only stopped getting shot by aliens when the wizards became his new playthings.

 

I tried hacking into wizarding medical services, but it dawned on me two seconds later that there is no such thing as the wizard internet. 

 

The records could only tell me so much, so I decided to look for information directly at the source and interrogate his doctors and perhaps even work colleagues - but the trip was more trouble than it was worth.

 

I could not take the TARDIS to Torchwood headquarters, since she is still bonded to the little one and can’t move for the time being, so I was forced to make use of local means of transportation.  I had previously requested a blank Portkey from our contact at the Ministry, which would have allowed me to travel freely. To my endless frustration, I was denied under the pretext that “two of us roaming around unchecked,  wreaking havoc, is more than the Ministry can be expected to tolerate.” and was told that I was welcome to use the “publicly available” means of transportation “just like everybody else”.

 

The Knight Bus was no rockier than the TARDIS on a particularly temperamental day, but it was the constant - and grating - conversation that I found slightly difficult to tolerate. 

 

Anyhow, the trip turned out to be a waste of time, anyway. The welcome I received upon my arrival at Torchwood was… less than enthusiastic to say the least.

 

It didn’t take that long for the human pudding-brains to grasp who I was - in fact, some of them seemed to know _of_ me - but the knowledge made them less, and not more, receptive to my person than they were before. They all seemed to share different degrees of attachment to the subject - some of them went as far as to describe themselves as “old friends of John’s”. It was interesting to notice that, despite his defective nature and alarming mental instability, my former self’s charisma and ability to inspire loyalty seem to be intact. 

 

In short, they told me that both John and Rose had been quite active in Torchwood in the initial years after the subject was created. They say he was an excellent agent, but that his tendency to put himself in harm’s way was a little bit too much, so he had to be taken off active duty, whereupon he proceeded to be brilliant at everything else he tried to do, from IT security to alien tech identification.  He retired from Torchwood completely after Donna was born, but Rose continued as an active Agent until her pregnancy with Jack. Even so, when the crisis was big enough, they would be called in to help - which had produced quite unusual situations of alien negotiations in the presence of two hybrid babies. 

 

The most forthcoming individual on this matter was one Dr. Martha Jones, who even in this universe is too clever for her own good, working in the Torchwood medical team. She was the one responsible for the subject’s health, and was willing to discuss him in more general terms. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that rubbish. She - like all the other apes in this place -seemed to be almost fond of the subject. She kept asking me about completely pointless things such as how the children were and if “darling little Jack” had started talking yet and if Donna had gotten used to having a little brother yet. There was over twenty minutes of this mushy babble about the subject’s family unit, but in the end I managed to extract some useful nuggets of information before being rudely interrupted.

 

Out of that, I reached the following conclusions:

First, that as much as the subject might not quite meet the standards of Time Lord parenthood, his children were not willfully mistreated. Dr. Jones, who acted as a sort of family doctor for hybrid Time-Lord human children and the subject, seemed to be quite content with their health and upbringing, and I trust Martha to be thorough in this matter. 

 

However, by the number of times the children were mentioned at Torchwood, and some alarming anecdotes told by Martha as well as the rest of the staff, there was very little work put into life balance, and the little ones were more often than not caught  in the middle of alien invasion crises. _This_ is what made them weary, quiet and cautious in tense situations. Extensive training because of the subject’s selfishness. 

 

All the information gathered, however, was quite old - both Martha and the others mentioned that they had been involved in a different, even more secret project for more than a year now - that it started before Jack was born, but now turned into a full-time assignment.  

 

I started enquiring more about what Martha knew of this ‘secret assignment’, but before I could get any further, none other than Wilfred Mott stormed into the room and dragged me to his office for some questioning of his own. 

 

 

_Dr. Wilfred Noble’s Office, 13:00_

 

“Doctor Wilfred _Noble_ , PhD in Astrophysics,” The Doctor muttered as he read the framed diploma on the wall. “Why is it that everyone’s got PhDs in this dimension?”

 

The man sitting at the desk in front of him raised an eyebrow for a few seconds, and then reverted back to a frown. 

 

“So you are the guy from the other dimension,” Wilf’s voice should have been the same, with the same vocal chords and even the same accent, but there was something heavier, rougher about the man in front of him.  “What are you doing here? What kind of Universe-shattering mess are you going to drag us into this time? I’ve been told that this dimension was closed off unless the fabric of Time itself was unravelling, so we probably have no time to lose…”

 

“It’s not the end of the Multiverse, Wilf…” The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose, interrupting the old man. “You can relax. My business here is-”

 

“That would be Doctor Noble for you, old man,” he interrupted, crossing his arms and straightening up his back. “John tells me you met my counterpart in your universe and he was kind of a goof, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me as one.” 

 

“Who are you then, _Doctor Noble_ , to presume you have the right to question me in such a rude way? Wilf might not have had a fancy diploma on his wall, but he was a kind-hearted man without all those airs…” 

 

“I am what happens if there is no Doctor around to save the day…” he said, getting up from behind the desk and pacing the length of his room, displaying a slight limp. “The sweetheart whom I would have married after the War was killed in a bombing, and I had nothing but the stars to keep me company. I enrolled at the University, studied the stars, started taking an interest in parallel universe theories and then the ones that turned out to be not-so-theoretical but tried to stay clear from those shady government agencies that traded in secrets…” he made a sweeping gesture towards his office, chuckling. “So despite Torchwood’s interests in recruiting me, I always declined, decided that I had enough of fighting and that I would be better suited for University life. And I would have been just another bitter professor with his war veteran hang-ups and no family to give me any comfort…” he sat back at his desk and absent-mindedly reached for a picture frame, which the Doctor hadn’t paid any attention to before. “That is, until they came into my life.” 

 

“They were actually looking for Donna Noble when they found me. Rose and John, that is,” his hard face finally seemed to soften a bit as he spoke, his eyes still fixed on the picture frame. “They came to my office at the University and I was completely baffled as to why they were so devastated by the fact that I had never married. When they started out, there was no Donna Noble in this Universe.” 

 

The Doctor’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline as he started remembering all the signs and thoughts that he had pushed to the back of his mind on the day of his arrival. 

 

“They tried recruiting me too, but still I would have none of it - especially after I’d witnessed all the suffering brought on by the Cybermen. But at least they were honest with me. They told me of the parallel Universes, confirming my most daring theories, but it was only a few years later that they confessed that they knew me from the other Universe. They told me that I wasn’t alone there. And then they told me that my granddaughter, who had been the light of my life, would be born here again…” 

 

He finally turned the picture frame around, which showed Wilf and little Donna, probably less than a year ago, with a small telescope between them. It was a nighttime picture, and they both had identical angry faces turned towards the camera, obviously annoyed at the brightness of the flash that interrupted their stargazing. 

 

“It was right at the time when John was starting to settle down with a human name, so I offered him to have me as his official backstory. Some long-lost son from overseas… So all the official records were appeased, and I gained a family to boot.” 

 

He turned his eyes back to the Doctor, and his expression hardened.

 

“So no matter what you came to do here, if you harm a single hair of my grandchildren’s heads, you won’t only answer to John and Rose… You’ll answer to me and now that I finally embraced agency life, to the entirety of Torchwood too. We protect our Time Lord hybrids - And I’ll protect my family, even from the likes of you.”

 

\-----------------------------

 

“Aside from his astounding narrative, he was not very forthcoming with my tentative questioning - I was only left with the knowledge that the subject still retains the capability of inspiring enormous amounts of loyalty. Giving an old, bitter man the possibility of having a family in his old age should do the trick marvelously - now I only wonder if he did that on purpose, in order to secure personal alliances with Torchwood instead of merely institutional ones… But I don’t think Rose would stand for anything of that sort, and there is the possibility of mere familial affection.

 

On the subject of familial affection, my next stop was in the Tyler Mansion, to see if there was any information that could be gathered from Jackie and Pete Tyler. I was well-received by their teenage son Tony, but Jackie showed suspicion at first, and then blind rage when I told her I was investigating her son-in-law, so there was nothing I could really learn from his family. 

 

After a most unproductive early afternoon, I decided to seek out the Ministry of Magic to see if there was any more information that could be gathered about him there. 

 

Infiltrating wizarding society, with their lack of technology and common sense, was quite annoying. The right settings of the sonic screwdriver are, of course, enough to make a very passable wand substitute, but the wizards and witches themselves get spooked by the sonic noises and react in surprising ways while hearing it, usually initiating unwanted conversations about ‘this weird, metal wand’ that I have. 

 

The only reliable official contact that I had access to was one Hermione Granger, who was even less cooperative and forthcoming than the Torchwood people.” 

 

 

_Ministry of Magic, Hermione Granger’s Office, 17:00._

 

“What do you mean, information on John?” she ran her fingers through her curly hair, a small, tired sigh escaping her lips. “If you need information to flesh out your backstory why do you come pestering me instead of just asking the man himself?” 

 

“But you can’t really expect him to share all the aspects of his life with me. There might be things that he’s not aware of. Or even things he would rather not tell me, and I need to know…”

 

“And why do you need to know these kinds of things Doctor?” she shot him a suspicious look. When he didn’t immediately reply she asked: “Are you _investigating_ him?” sounding almost disgusted for some reason.

 

“Look, you seem smart and important enough in this government to perhaps warrant knowing this, but I was responsible for sending the one you call ‘John Noble’ to this reality. He was too dangerous to remain on our Earth, and Rose Tyler was sent here to watch him and restrain him if need be.” The woman’s eyes widened in alarm, but she sat still as he continued to explain.

 

“Yes, I am investigating him, because with the way he has been acting, it is possible that he might prove himself too dangerous for this reality as well - and in that case, I would be doing this world a favour by handling a dangerous hybrid.”

 

“And what kind of danger do you think he presents, Doctor? It’s quite obvious that he has lived through quite a lot - we’ve been through war ourselves, we’ve seen witches and wizards haunted by it in many ways…” 

 

“It’s not precisely about what he has done, but about what he’s doing…” the Doctor began, but was interrupted.

 

“Being a teacher?”

 

“Meddling with the wizarding world without quite knowing what he is doing…”

 

“Look, Doctor,” Hermione stood up from her desk, dismissal clear in her voice. “John Noble’s appointment as Professor of Muggle Studies was not a thoughtless decision. It is not as if we didn’t have many other suitable candidates. The changes in the curriculum were part of a larger political change, one that started even before him and his wife showed up. I don’t know how highly you might think of you and your… son, as much as you distrust him, but he didn’t come up with the whole concept by himself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some memos to finish before I can go home.”  

 

“All in all it was a productive although frustrating day. The accounts of the actions of one John Noble here were not quite what I expected. It is very clear that he is indeed interfering with the timeline of this reality, but not, as I expected, for the sake of his own vanity. It would seem that there is in fact a larger plan in place that includes both the Ministy of Magic and the Torchwood Institute. This is most uncharacteristic of my old incarnation’s counterpart, who was infamous for acting alone in his arrogance. It is now clear to me that this is going to require a much deeper and much more detailed and widespread research than I originally anticipated.”

 

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “This also means that I will actually have to go and listen to this babbling fool’s classes. Marvelous. Just my luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salutations, dear readers! We're finally back with a new chapter! To those of you who have been tugging at our sleeves reminding us how long it's been since our last update, we would like to say: We know, we know! We're sorry! :(  
> Believe us, there were some very important and urgent real-life situations that needed to be dealt with first, such as exams, master's papers, internship applications, so the story was forced to take a back seat for a while. Those having been mostly sorted now, we were finally able to turn our notes and scribbles into a fully fleshed-out piece of text. We hope you enjoy this new chapter and please, as always penny for your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> Love, Eruanna and Lily


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